TCB July 6, 2016 — Behind the bar

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com July 6 – 12, 2016

FREE

Behind the bar Triad bartenders recount some of the most ridiculous and unbelievable things they’ve seen

Insect protein and weed PAGE 6

Lewis Street booze PAGE 21

HAWS’ housing play PAGE 8

PAGE 16

July 6 — 12, 2016

JULY 8 ERIC DARIUS | OPENING PERFORMER - SAUNDRA CRENSHAW JULY 9 THE GET RIGHT BAND (FUNK ROCK)

EXPERIENCE … EMF

Tickets are available through Saturday, July 30.

PERFORMANCES TO INCLUDE: Viva Vivaldi

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

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.

EMF Guitar Summit

Faculty Chamber Series

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

Eastern Music Faculty

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

Faculty Artists provide INTIMATE concerts twice weekly during the festival.

Chamber Music at UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance Mondays through July 25/8PM Chamber Music at Guilford College Tuesdays through July 26/8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College

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.

Ticket information & Sales 336-272-0160

2

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

His records

by Brian Clarey

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

NEWS 8 HAWS against blight 10 Through the US mail 12 HPJ: A walkable city

OPINION 14 Editorial: Jackboots at the Golden Corral

14 Citizen Green: Thanksgiving on the Fourth of July 15 It Just Might Work: Muni wifi, stupid 15 Fresh Eyes: 12 words to live by

FUN & GAMES 26 Heritage or hate?

GAMES

COVER

27 Jonesin’ Crossword

16 Behind the bar

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

CULTURE

28 South Elm Street, Greensboro

20 Food: Pork chops, cornbread and a little chill 21 Barstool: Greensboro’s first distillery 22 Music: Out of Africa 24 Art: Korinna’s Plath

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Of mice and men

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

He said, ‘I love you; I love this pub,’ and then he said, ‘Burke Street Pub is to Winston-Salem what Disney World is to America.’

— Tiffany Howell, owner of Burke Street Pub, in the Cover, page 16

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

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

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

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

CONTRIBUTORS

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

NEST EDITOR Alex Klein

SALES EXECUTIVE Korinna Sergent

allen@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com eric@triad-city-beat.com

alex@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Joanna Rutter intern@triad-city-beat.com

dick@triad-city-beat.com

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

nest@triad-city-beat.com Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

Cover photography

by Alex Klein Danielle Bull pours drinks at Bull’s Tavern

korinna@triad-city-beat.com

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

Uncle Gordon’s lawn took up most of the full-acre lot in this corner of New Jersey countryside outside of Princeton, about 45 minutes from New York City. It’s surrounded most immediately by farms, a shallow tributary of the Pike Run River and, more recently, tracts of McMansions and strip malls.

My aunt and my cousin, her only son, have been doing the best they can to tame this patch since Gordon left us in the fall, an untimely death for a man who had planned on just about every eventuality — even this one.

So I set out early on the morning of his memorial backyard party to trim back the weeds on the edges, blow out the last of the leaves that had gathered in the corners, square off the horseshoe pit. That kind of thing.

Tending another man’s lawn is a strange business, and the kind of thing that forces you to accept the finality of death.

The night before, we gathered in the family room and went through the stacks of their record collection, a time capsule stretching from the late 1960s, when they each began collecting records, through the Golden Age of the 1970s and into the late 1980s, when they pretty much stopped making records.

This was the music that I grew up on — literally the very same records: Pink Floyd, Paul Simon, the Grateful Dead, the J. Geils Band, Little Feat, all of that. In the span of a couple hours, my kids — who had never before seen a vinyl record — heard the soft fuzz beThe night before, we gathhind the early Bob Marley recordings, ered in the family room and learned the chorus went through the stacks of to “Dixie Chicken” their record collection, a time and inherited a capsule stretching from the piece of wisdom late 1960s.... that my aunt and uncle espoused, namely that the Rolling Stones sound best on vinyl, one album side at a time.

The playlist came along in linear fashion as we picked through the stacks. We passed around the album covers and liner notes to complete the tactile experience. Some of the older ones — Beatles, early Stones, Jethro Tull, the stuff Gordon had collected before he met my aunt — had his name labeled in the upper right-hand corner, made on the kind pistol-grip press you don’t see around too much anymore.

You cut a man’s lawn, you listen to his records, you gather in his yard with the people he loved and those who loved him, you get a sense of his full measure. It reveals itself slowly, like an album side, or a horseshoe pit choked with weeds.

We missed him, even though at times it felt like he was still there.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

3

July 6 — 12, 2016

CITY LIFE July 6 – 12 WEDNESDAY Wednesday Night Mixtape: Harmony and Flow @ ArtSpace Uptown (GSO), 10:30 p.m.

At this hip-hop showcase hosted by Dana Dane, three producers will make live beats as five emcees perform original rhymes. The night will end with a full-blown cypher. Who knows? You might hear the next Rafael Casal. Search for the event on Eventbrite for tickets.

by Jesse Morales and Joanna Rutter

FRIDAY

Peppercorn Theatre’s Flor to Somewhere debut @ the Children’s Museum (W-S), 11 a.m.

This kid-friendly play by Christina Quintana features a superhero named Flor and her invisible rocket ship. (Think Dora the Explorer but without so many awkward pauses.) The Facebook description makes sure to explain the show is appropriate for ages “7 to 107” so make sure to leave your 108-year-old great-grandma at home. There’s also a 2 p.m. show; see peppercorntheatre.org for matinee times scattered throughout the rest of July.

Housing Hangout @ UNCG Center for Housing and Community Studies (GSO), noon In room 1607 of the Moore Humanities and Research Administration building, listen in on a discussion about issues in immigrant housing. The expert squad of panelists include April Richard of the Greensboro Housing Coalition, Andrew Young from the Bonner Center for Community Service & Learning, Holly Sienkiewicz with Center for New North Carolinians and Franca Jalloh from Jalloh’s Upright Services of North Carolina Inc. Find the Center on Facebook for more info.

An Easy Evening @ Artivity on the Green (W-S), 8 p.m.

Eddie Atkins, an Americana musician out of Sandy Ridge, brings music for the June bugs, fireflies and free spirits (his words, not ours). Douglas Moore Jr. will open. The event page on Facebook invites you to “come let our chords melt away the discontent easily enabled by this modern world’s discord.” Sounds delightful. See the event page for details.

THURSDAY Grand Opening: Boys & Girls Club Learning Center @ the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club (HP), 11 a.m.

A High Point Community Foundation grant provided the means to open this computer learning center. There’ll be a ribbon cutting (classic) and a tour of the new facility. Go for the comedically big scissors; stay for the social change. Find the event on Facebook for more info.

4

SATURDAY

Revision Vintage July Pop Up Shop @ Revision Vintage (GSO), noon Get on your vintage-licious vibes at Revision Vintage’s second pop-up shop event, where you’ll find a current take on the fashions and furniture of yesteryear. Paisley ties not guaranteed. Plus, Cast Irony throws down dinner starting at 7 p.m. (reservations necessary). To save your space track down Revision Vintage on Facebook.

Break the BOX! Live Music+Tribute Dance Party: Prince vs. Michael Jackson @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 8 p.m.

HUMbl Media Services out of Winston-Salem presents a night of live tribute bands followed by a dance party for a full-on battle of the pop stars. Whether you side with the Purple One or the King of Pop, the event organizers promise you’ll dig this celebration of American musical royalty. Bring your slickest and most sparkly attire. Also, don’t forget your critical lenses on entertainment and celebrity. Search the event on Facebook for more info.

High Point Arts Council presents Arts Splash Concert @ Mendenhall Transportation Terminal, 6 p.m.

Keep your weekend groove going at the High Point Arts Council’s first-in-series Arts Splash show. BYO seating and eats to hear the Legacy Motown Revue crank out soul tunes. Bring your funky Motown moves, but you’re asked to leave your booze at home. For rain plans and more info, visit highpointarts.org or call 336.889.2727.

MONDAY

triad-city-beat.com

SUNDAY

NC Writers’ Network Open Mic @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 7 p.m.

Does your Netflix and chill routine seem dull? Show up at Scuppernong (their “uni-sex” restroom welcomes all) for an evening of live readings and audience feedback on local writers’ work.

The open-floor policy means that you, aspiring writer, could be among those featured. Goals, right?

Lucky for you, the North Carolina Writers’ Network website says they’re “the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.” Check out ncwriters.org for the deets.

TUESDAY Wine and Books @ the Public House (HP), 6:30 p.m.

Discuss The Girls (book by Emma Cline) with the girls (your new BFFLs). The debut novel follows a tortured teen in northern California who is drawn into a cult during the end of the 1960s, hungry for acceptance, then hungry for violence. Get the book at Sunrise Books in HP and name-drop the book club for a discount, and find the bookstore on Facebook for details.

Scalawag & A/perture present I, Destini and Southern Rites @ A/perture Cinema (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Scalawag, one of our favorite magazines out of Durham, co-hosts a screening of one short and one feature-length film telling stories about the interplay of race, community and authority for young people in the South. Afterwards, stay for a panel discussion including Destini Riley, subject of one of the films. Tickets can be found at aperturecinema.ticketmob.com.

5

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

6

Welcome to the Trump media machine

This is indeed chilling: “If they say, ‘Sure, he’s good…’ — because they’re gonna vet you, obviously, see what you wrote before and things like that, and then they’ll probably want a couple subjects, and then they say, ‘Okay,’….” [“Journalist ejected from event with Trump state campaign director”; by Jordan Green; June 28, 2016]. So only the faithful are allowed to report, and then only on just “a couple subjects” — so there is no reporting, really, just more PR that answers no questions, uncovers no facts, tells no truth. Just a press junket for a reality show. And they don’t even hand out gift bags. Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Mary McInerney, High Point Congratulations on joining the esteemed club of journalists that have been ejected, insulted or even physically abused by the Trump campaign. Should we not be worried?! My gosh, good work; well done; stay on it and thanks for paying attention. I fear too many have fallen asleep.

John Larson, Winston-Salem Editor’s note: Larson is a candidate for Winston-Salem City Council.

Totally shameful treatment you endured from Trump’s guy, and glad you didn’t let it go silently. Thanks for speaking up. (Not that I think much of his November opponent, who has not had a press conference in what, six months?)

Jet Hollander, Winston-Salem

Two views on courting millennials

As a young professional who lives in Greensboro but works in High Point, I applaud High Point’s decision to identify ways to make the city more desirable for young people [“A task force of millennials pitches their cohorts on High Point”; by Jordan Green; June 29, 2016]. However, as a young professional working as a social worker in High Point, something that would attract me to want to invest long term is a demonstrated commitment to all of High Point’s citizens and not just the privileged few. Young people are looking to live in cities with diversity,

reduced income inequalities, equal access to educational and work opportunities as well as fun community engagement opportunities.

Before High Point invests time and money into attracting a “new cohort of millennials,” it might consider better opportunities for the thousands of low-income kids and millennials already residing within the city limits who are an untapped resource for creativity and are already invested in their community.

Adrienne Mages, Greensboro I too am a millennial living in High Point… born and raised. Went off to school, and unlike most folks who are from here I came back. We settled on the northwest end of High Point because we believed in our city and were excited with the potential growth of the Uptowne area more so than the Wendover corridor where everyone seems to flock.

The northwest end of town is one of the few areas on this side of High Point [that] young folks and families can afford and is desirable, with new, modest developments. All my faith in High Point was lost when the city council decided to drop a 100-unit Section 8 housing development in the middle of the only side of town that “young entrepreneurial millennials” could afford and were starting to see a desirable side of town to live.

So to my fellow millennials, I do not recommend High Point as a place to settle down. High Point is still a good ole boys club where they will sell the citizens short in a second for a developer who is in the club.

There’s enough under-utilized space in this city, it could have been places anywhere… and I know it is needed. But they’ll drop it in the middle of a neighborhood to help their friends acquire some cheap land and government-funded handouts.

My wife and I have ceased our business plans for the area; we’ll need the money to recoup our lost home value by the city council’s decision to look out for their own. We’ll move to another Triad city and continue our plans, but it won’t be High Point. I’ve been here 30 years. I hoped they could change, but trust me, they can’t. They’ll sell their citizens short in a heartbeat to keep the good ole boys club running. They’ll preach good intentions, but their intentions are only their own. Run. Chris, High Point

4 up-and-coming industries that belong in the Triad

by Joanna Rutter

1. Recycled textiles In case you haven’t heard, Greensboro in particular is really, really proud of its textile heritage. And as high-end apartments take shape in abandoned mills for the exposed-brick lust crowd, many large industrial spaces remain unused. The Triad also sucks at recycling in general. So what if we could raise up a competitor in the recycled material-based fabric industry, currently populated by companies like Thread, which makes its product from soda bottles? A ethically-run, fair-wages factory could be backed and supplied by diverted city recycling funding, Greensboro Fashion Week and support from textile giant VF who care about their city.

2. Insect protein The South is humid, lush and therefore buggy, so we’ve got the raw material right here. As a human race, we will run out of meat to eat sooner than we’ve planned, the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warns, so we’ve got the market opportunity. Not to mention so many Triad residents struggle with food hardship. Enter entomophagy, or, eating insects.

Whether it catches on now as a trend or later as a necessity, it’d be in the Triad’s best interest to dedicate a field research lab and an accompanying chic, adventurous restaurant (probably in downtown Winston-Salem) to the science and art of consuming bugs. Perhaps a cricket-flour-based protein bar company like Exo could even establish a satellite presence here.

3. Hydroponic produce Here’s another idea to file under Triad hunger: growing fresh produce in vast quantities using hydroponic technology. This centuries-old method of harvesting plants in water, not earth, can take place indoors (such as a 70,000-square foot abandoned steel factory in New Jersey, and in old bomb shelters in London) under high-intensity lamps, 365 days a year. How about we move some mobile hydroponic gardening units into those humongous furniture showrooms in High Point between Furniture Markets that would be fun and simple to break down and then reassemble? With university partnerships, a crack team of some of the brightest science and engineering students from NC A&T University and others could turn the initiative into a legendary senior project and a fine solution for our lack of accessible, fresh produce.

4. Marijuana I’m not going to officially weigh in on some ultimate pro or con argument for the medical or recreational usage of cannabis, nor do I think it’ll be legalized here in the next five years, but taking a peek at Colorado’s recent explosion — making $996 million in 2015 according to the Denver Post — makes ganja a desirable job-creating commodity. Why not here? Think of the millions of taxes the state would make off the sales, and the smugness of becoming the East Coast mecca for all things weed, specializing in boutique edibles (two words: kush puppies) and curated tourism experiences a la the craft beer craze. Everybody wins! Maybe grow the first batch of plants next to the spinach in our hydroponic gardens to start?

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

Tacos

26%

Burritos

Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

one-story, full-façade front porch with circular bays, Ionic columns, turned balusters, and a balcony; pedimented dormers and a porte-cochere.” Yet I take as much delight in the entry for a bungalow with a California-style porch built in Piedmont Heights in the late 1920s for W. Paul Whitley, the Greensboro Police Department’s fingerprint expert.

There are larger stories about urban development here, too. Ever wondered how State Street came to be such a compact and walkable commercial center in a city otherwise cursed by sprawl? Unlike many early 20th Century developments, the author explains, the adjacent McAdoo Heights neighborhood “provided many of the amenities of a small town,” and its bars in particular drew residents from the neighboring mill villages, which were dry. Yet, by “the mid-1980s the sway of McAdoo Heights’ wealthy neighbor to the west, Irving Park, overcame that of the mills, transforming State Street into an avenue of upscale shops and restaurants.”

You don’t read this book cover to cover or look for big, overarching themes; you take in its granular detail little by little and return from time to time to mine its small epiphanies.

Games

the Carolina Theatre, the Jefferson-Pilot Building and War Memorial Stadium, but how about that long, stucco Spanish Colonial Revival-style building on West Gate City Boulevard between Tate Street and Freeman Mill Road? It was formerly the home of Carolina Baking Company and was likely built in the late 1920s. Intrigued by the recent resurgence of activity at the intersection of Spring Garden and Chapman streets? You might be interested to know that the area emerged as a commercial hub in the 1910s and that the building now occupied by Freeman’s Grub & Pub was built as David S. Freeman Grocery Store between 1915 and 1920.

There’s no evidence of favoritism towards predominantly white neighborhoods like College Hill, Westerwood and Lindley Park. Fabulous architecture can be found throughout black neighborhoods including Arlington Park and Dudley Street. Take the John A. Hodgin House, located near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Gate City Boulevard. Built for a real estate developer between 1910 and 1913, it proves that even as trendy neighborhoods like Fisher Park were beginning to take off, the south side still easily held its own. The Neoclassical Revival-style dwelling, Brown writes, “stands out for its uniqueness as well its size and fine finish, which includes a two-story portico of paired Ionic columns; a

Fun & Games

by Jordan Green Ever since this hardbound volume arrived at our office — courtesy of Preservation Greensboro Development Director John Graham, I’m told — I’ve been unable to resist poring through its pages.

Compiled by Marvin A. Brown and published by Preservation Greensboro in 1995, this 447-page volume is an indispensable guide to the building stock of Greensboro’s historic core, from the mill villages in the northeast to Lindley Park, from exclusive Irving Park to working-class Glenwood, from predominantly African-American areas in the east to the pre-Revolutionary War Quaker settlement near present-day Guilford College.

The brief history of the relatively young city’s settlement and development is helpful, but the payoff is in the “Neighborhood Histories and Inventories of Buildings” section, which comprises roughly three quarters of the book. With a thumbnail black-and-white photo, an address and a capsule history of each building, this is gold for a newspaper such as ours that is dedicated to charting the reinvention of our cities and explaining how we got to be the way we are. For virtually any noteworthy building more than 75 years old, there’s information about the its architectural style, its original owner and the date it was built.

Sure, you can find the more prominent structures like

Culture

Greensboro: An Architectural Record

Cover Story

74%

Opinion

Eric Ginsburg: Just because I’m in the minority (burritos forever!) doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Burritos frequently incorporate more and better ingredients — tasty beans, or cheese, or sweet potato or most importantly guacamole — and don’t rely as heavily on boring radish. It doesn’t help that I dislike cilantro unless its hidden in salsa (it’s a

Readers: Sorry, Ginsburg; an impressive 74 percent of our readers selected tacos. Intern Joanna Rutter and sports columnist Anthony Harrison explained why.

“I pledge allegiance to the taco of the United States of Tex Mex,” Rutter wrote, “and to the toppings for which it fills, one tortilla, under lime, with liberty and salsa for all.”

Harrison took a more analytical approach.

“I too must side with tacos, he wrote. “While burritos are clearly the choice for when you want to be full fast — kind of like the martini of Mexican cuisine — with a leisurely taco dinner, you can pick and choose varied proteins at your leisure.”

Nobody selected “Other,” proving that feelings are

New question: Should the NBA boycott North Carolina for the 2017 All-Star Game due to HB2? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

News

Jordan Green: A healthy smear of guacamole in a burrito — that all-purpose meal — is indeed magical, but the elegant pairing of ingredients in the simple taco is one of the all-time greats. Few meals in the world balance the fresh and cooked so delightfully. Savory bits of marinated pork, steak, chicken, shrimp, tofu or whatever topped with cilantro and chopped onion, garnished with a radish and topped with squeezed lime is divine. Sure, you can make slight variations and substitutions, but don’t stray too far.

strong enough on the matter to eliminate other contenders (think tortas, in particular, which Ginsburg rates higher than tacos as well).

Up Front

Brian Clarey: Burritos are great. Great. But seriously: Tacos. No question about it.

genetic thing), but that isn’t the main reason burritos are better. They’re more portable and more for your money.

Y’all probably picked tacos because so few places here do San Francisco-style burritos well, but once you’ve had one, you’ll see what I mean. As for the argument that tacos allow for more variety or experimentation — that’s only because your tacos suck and aren’t crave-worthy enough to lust after, causing you to flit between mediocre morsels that you celebrate because they’re cheap and not because they’re life-changing and delicious. A taco never changed my life, and one never even filled me up.

triad-city-beat.com

Burgers and hot dogs may be more quintessentially aligned with the Fourth of July, but since several on our staff are headed to Austin, Texas for an annual alt-weekly convention, our minds went to the border for this food showdown.

Burritos or tacos?

7

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

8

NEWS

HAWS to request city funds to acquire troubled apartment complex

by Jordan Green

A struggling low-income housing complex honors Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke. The housing authority is seeking financial assistance from the city to acquire it. The deal could erase the financial liability of its owners, two men who are active in Republican politics.

The Housing Authority of Winston-Salem plans to request financial assistance from the city to pay for the acquisition of a blighted complex known as New Hope Manor Apartments that is wedged between Cleveland Avenue Homes and Fairview Park — potentially a key aspect of an ambitious plan to transform the neighborhood.

The anticipated request comes on the heels of a unanimous vote by city council on June 20 to the join the housing authority as a co-applicant for a federal Choice Neighborhoods grant as part of an ambitious plan to transform the area surrounding the Cleveland Avenue Homes public-housing community.

The city’s participation includes a pledge of $4.5 million to pay for business façade improvements, neighborhood broadband, a revolving loan for businesses, streetscaping and land for new parks and other public spaces in the area.

Ritchie Brooks, the city’s director of community & business development, indicated in a May 24 memo to members of city council that the housing authority is seeking $1.7 million in assistance from the city “to acquire, demolish, abate, rehab and operate the property in a sustainable manner.”

Based on information provided by the housing authority, Brooks’ memo expresses concern that the property could be sold at a loss, perpetuating a downward cycle of divestment with negative repercussions for the neighborhood.

“HAWS has recently communicated with the lender, who is willing to dispose of the property at a significant loss, potentially allowing acquisition of the property for as little as $1.5 million,” Brooks wrote. “HAWS believes this could provide an appealing opportunity for an absentee investor to purchase the property, do some minimal rehab, and

then continue to operate the property as untenable multifamily housing, perpetuating the blight and inhibiting the development of the surrounding area.”

The memo indicates that the owners currently owe $2.5 million on the property.

If the city agrees to finance the revitalization of the apartment complex, it wouldn’t be the first time the community formerly known as Burke Village — a spartan collection of brick buildings with minimal landscaping and parking lots littered with broken glass — has been the focus of hopes for renewal. A granite slab set in the gatepost at the entrance of the complex dated May 1996 dedicates the property to Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke, who has represented the Northwest Ward on city council since 1977. The inscription expresses appreciation to Burke “for her extraordinary leadership in the revitalization of this development,” adding that “the selfless devotion of Ms. Burke to this project exemplifies her commitment to quality, affordable housing for all citizens of the city of Winston-Salem.”

“That property was a project that was very rundown, where people had a lot of drugs and crime and young children unsupervised,” Burke recalled.

“A lot of work was put in it with the group of people to come up with very nice housing for people. It was very well supervised.”

Gordon L. Blackwell, a Raleigh investor, owned the property at the time. The city of Winston-Salem loaned Blackwell’s company $1.4 million through federal Community Development Block Grant and Home Loan funds, according to city officials. Blackwell’s company paid back $431,967, according to city records. In 2005, the city wrote off $658,033 after the borrower made an additional payment of $300,000 to settle the debt. Property records show that Pinnacle Properties of Randolph Co. LLC, a company owned by Bob Crumley and others, purchased the property from lender Community Investment Corp. of North Carolina in November 2005. Crumley is the founder of Crum-

The city of Winston-Salem invested $1.4 million to stabilize New Hope Manor Apartments and wrote off half the debt 11 years ago.

ley Roberts law firm in Asheboro and was the Republican nominee for state attorney general in 2008.

Burke blamed the influence of the residents at the neighboring Cleveland Avenue Homes public housing project for the decline of what was then Burke Village.

“We had such a challenge with the Cleveland Avenue Homes public housing residents,” she said. “They just couldn’t stay away from that Burke Village. The rules were probably more strict with Cleveland Avenue Homes.”

In 2012, the 4.1-acre complex — now valued at $2.9 million — was transferred from Pinnacle Properties LLC to a new company jointly owned by Crumley and Nathan Tabor, a former chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party.

Tabor said the apartment complex’s decline is “not for lack of trying” on the part of its owners, adding that just in the time he’s been involved there has been a turnover of four different property management companies.

Brooks’ memo to city council states “there is an increase in crime in the area and the current owner has expressed an unwillingness to continue to ‘throw good money after bad’ in the form of

JORDAN GREEN

lease enforcement, maintenance and/ or rehab.”

While declining to give a specific number, Crumley disputed a reference in Brooks’ memo to a 70 percent vacancy rate.

“We have several units that need repair and maintenance,” he said. “It’s been a very challenging project.”

Crumley said he couldn’t speak to the $1.5 million figure cited in the Brooks memo, noting that he hasn’t necessarily been privy to all the discussions between the housing authority and Carolina Bank, the lender.

“From our standpoint as original borrowers and owners of the property, if the bank reaches an agreement and says, ‘We can do part of it in cash and part of it through Community Reinvestment Act credits,’ that’s wonderful — God bless America,” Crumley said.

“All I need to know is the bank says, ‘Mr. Crumley, we’re paid. Go ahead and transfer the property.’”

Crumley said discussions have been taking place for about a year among the property owners, the bank, the housing authority, city officials, Winston-Salem/ Forsyth County Schools and Forsyth County about a potential deal.

Last November, school officials told a

triad-city-beat.com

group of urban community advocates that they were considering closing Ashley Academy, an elementary school about five blocks east of New Hope Manor Apartments, and rebuilding in a new location.

“We’re working on a redevelopment plan that the city is looking at as a part of putting a new Ashley into that, that would also include daycare, pre-K, K-5 and a health center,” Assistant Superintendent Darrell Walker said at the time.

But by February, when school officials held a series of community meetings to get input on a proposed $325.8 million bond, replacement of Ashley Academy had been dropped from the list, despite being rated as one of the most overcrowded schools in the district.

“I think the schools are on record as saying they need another elementary school in the area,” Crumley said.

“The school district can’t come in and buy the apartment complex and rent it out,” he added, explaining that the county could conceivably play some role in making sure that a potential property transfer met statutory guidelines.

Theo Helm, chief of staff for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said the district generally doesn’t comment on specific properties under consideration for purchase.

“We’re continuously looking for sites and locations that might be suitable for schools, and we’re open to partnerships that would be good for students,” he said.

In April, the school board approved at $350 million bond proposal — an increase from the $325.8 million package previously presented to the community.

“The package that our board approved is very similar to the $325 million that we presented to the community, with a couple additions,” Helm said. “One of those is $900,000 for design fees for a future Ashley [school]. The idea there is our board felt that by the time this cycle goes through we have a design for a future Ashley so it would be one of the first things that would be done with a future bond referendum.”

CEO Larry Woods, confirmed that the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem, plans to continue to use the New Hope Manor Apartments property for housing.

“Our goal is to save as many of the units as we can,” he said. “Our goal is to consolidate it. No one will be moved off site. If there’s only one person in a building we might move them into another building. Our goal is to retain the property and let HUD know we have the site under control to support the transformation plan.”

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

Correction

All She Wrote

A story in the June 29 issue of Triad City Beat, “A task force of millennials pitches their cohorts on High Point,” misstated the amount of financial assistance provided by the city of High Point’s Core City Homebuyer Assistance Program for downpayment on a house. The actual amount is $7,500.

9 Garage Branding Down Town Winston Salem Mechanical 06.09.16

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

10

Residents rally to bolster US Postal Service

by Eric Ginsburg

Speakers at a Greensboro rally for the US Postal Service highlight the need to fight off attacks — allegedly led by Wall Street — on the public-service institution as well as the need to expand the postal service’s role to keep it relevant.

The only critiques of the US Postal Service during a “Greensboro field hearing” on the subject last week came at the end, during a public-comment period. And even then, the audience members couched their criticism in the context of a broader assault on the agency, laying blame at the feet of Congress and the upper class.

Resident Jack Jezorek outlined several service problems he’s encountered as a postal customer, but said he knows it isn’t the fault of postal employees.

Shortly after, walking up to the microphone in the auditorium at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum on June 29, Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter echoed Jezorek’s remarks, adding that the problem is that “there is a bigger conspiracy to get rid of all unions.”

The event, organized by a group called a Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service, served as one of five regional “field hearings” across the country to discuss the importance of public — as opposed to private — postal service. But the evening functioned much more as a rally for the cause, with three of four members of the “field hearing officer panel” expressing support for protecting a public postal service well before speakers concluded their comments. Indeed, the Rev. Anthony Spearman said while introducing himself as the moderator that if anyone had individual concerns or gripes with the postal service, an expert in the back of the room could address those issues separately.

But the event excelled as an educational meeting or rally, with rousing testaments to the historic and continued importance of a public postal service and thorough explanations for why the public postal system could be seen as struggling.

US Rep. Alma Adams, fresh off a widely publicized sit-in action on gun

US Rep. Alma Adams speaks in favor of the US Postal Service as panelists and the moderator at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum listen last week.

reform with some of her colleagues, kicked off the speakers for the evening.

Growing up, people in her community wanted to work for the postal service, she said, viewing it as a path to the middle class for black families in particular as well as women and veterans.

People “cherish” the public service, the congresswoman said, adding that it connects soldiers abroad to their loved ones, helps seniors receive prescriptions and exists to “bond” the nation together and serve all communities.

Like other speakers, Adams decried the Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act of 2006 that “compels the USPS to pay approximately $5.5 billion per year to fund future retiree healthcare costs 75 years in advance,” in the words of a handout from the event, placing an undue burden on USPS with the aim of ultimately privatizing mail service. Privatizing the service would drive down wages, among other negative effects, Adams said.

“When you do that, you really take authority away from the people,” she said, adding that the public postal service puts people before profit, “so it’s the people who profit.”

A panel of supporters — including

Councilwoman Sharon Hightower, local NAACP first vice-president Viola Fuller, firefighter Fred Erwin and retired economics professor Larry Morse — offered up softball questions to presenters.

Hightower went further in her initial comments, expressing her strong support for USPS and saying privatization would create a greater income divide and diminished quality of life rather than posing a question to Adams, who she said explained her defense of the postal service clearly.

The most affecting endorsement of the evening came from John Jones, the president of the Renaissance Community Co-op grocery store in northeast Greensboro, who explained how he relies on the postal service to deliver his medicine after a couple surgeries. He’s used mail-order prescriptions for several years now, he said, and it saves him considerable time and money. Jones and other residents are establishing the grocery co-op in a food desert after years of lacking access to fresh food, and he said he’s concerned that if the postal industry went private, “postal deserts” would pop up, eliminating accessibility for countless people like him around the nation.

ERIC GINSBURG

Speaking from the floor towards the end of the night, Katina Amadi also delivered an impassioned testimony in support of USPS, explaining that working for the institution was her first job in Greensboro and that her loving coworkers helped her pay her way through cosmetology school. Other scheduled speakers articulated the ways federal laws in the last decade have deteriorated the quality of service from the USPS; organizer Richard Koritz, who closed out the event, thanked people for “speaking truth to power that emanates from Wall Street” adding that a “financial oligarchy” has captured Washington, DC, and that people need to “fight the powers that be” and protect the good union jobs at the postal service.

Rather than scaling back USPS services and slipping in quality, speakers and panelists agreed that the public post office should explore new avenues to remain relevant and essential, particularly through the concept of postal banking. Attendees received a flier that argues that, “nearly 28 percent of US households [are] underserved by traditional banks,” leaving people with “few options other than expensive and predatory payday lenders and check

“It shouldn’t be so expensive to access your own money,” Young said.

Proponents hope that if Congress acts to restore service standards, eliminate the retirement pre-funding requirement and encourage increased uses such as postal banking, the USPS can thrive anew in the 21st Century. But for that to happen, a sit-in like the one Rep. Adams and her colleagues recently staged might be in order, some commented.

Sitting in the front row, wearing one of her signature hats, Adams offered her signature response: “Absolutely.”

triad-city-beat.com Up Front

cashers.”

It continues: “The USPS has more than 30,000 locations, 59 percent of which are in ZIP codes with zero or only one bank branch. Worldwide, 1.5 billion people access financial services at their post office.”

Michael Young, who works for United for a Fair Economy and traveled from Durham for the Southeastern field hearing, argued that check cashing services and payday lending “is a form a wage theft” and called on the postal service to implement fee-free banking options.

News

Keep the beat.

Opinion

triad-city-beat.com

Cover Story

2 Bedroom/1 Bath $169,900

Fun & Games

ed

uc Red

Culture

504 Ashland Drive

Games Shot in the Triad

Frank Slate Brooks Broker/Realtor®

336.708.0479 FrankSlate.Brooks@trmhomes.com

All She Wrote

Presented by

11

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

12

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Pedestrian plan gives shape to investment in a more walkable city

by Jordan Green

A pedestrian plan gives structure to a unified vision for a more walkable city, but a number of projects are already underway or completed to make it easier for people to walk and bike in High Point.

Like most Southern cities, High Point lifted the requirement for mandatory sidewalks on new streets during the residential building boom after World War II, but reinstated the rule in the early 21st Century.

As Transportation Planning Manager Greg Venable noted, the more rigorous standards resulted in a plan for a project to widen Skeet Club Road that is currently underway to provide sidewalks on both sides. And while the plan doesn’t include dedicated bike lanes, the outside lanes will be 14-feet wide to allow cars to maneuver around cyclists.

“That’s something that is changing,” Venable said. “Before, people were more concerned about the car and moving traffic. Now, we want to include all modes of transportation. We’re improving as new projects are built.”

While evolving transportation standards are paradoxically improving the walkability of suburban areas like Skeet Club Road — an extension of Wendover Avenue near the Palladium shopping area — many residents are lobbying the city through a new pedestrian plan to focus on older areas in what’s known as the Core City.

The city is in the midst of a public input process to develop a pedestrian plan, with financial support from the state Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation. Under the competitive grant, the state and city are each putting up $35,000 to pay for the initiative.

Venable said the city has received 260 completed surveys from citizens, but people can still stop by City Hall to look at an informational display and use an interactive mapping app to provide input. Venable added that citizens will have additional opportunities to give feedback at a public meeting at either City Hall or the library in September.

Dorothy Darr, a community leader in southwest High Point who was responsi-

A woman walks across South Main Street in High Point about 300 feet from a marked and signalized crosswalk — reflecting how little faith pedestrians have in motorists to stop.

ble for prodding the city to apply for the has a higher concentration of poor planning grant, wants the city to revise people who rely on walking as form of its evaluation methodology for prioritiztransportation than the more affluent ing sidewalk projects. suburbs on the north side.

The methodology currently used by Venable said that depending on the the city gives preference to streets with feedback the city receives some tweaks minimal construction constraints and could be made to the point system for higher posted speed limits, while also posted speed limits, while arguing that considering pedestrian generators such some preference for higher speed roadas shopping centers, worn paths that ways still makes sense. provide evidence that people are already “If you’re in a neighborhood with 25 walking along the mph speed limits roadway and a it’s definitely safer, history of pedestrian To learn more about the even though we accidents. don’t want people High Point Pedestrian “You get a lot of to have to walk in points if you have Plan and to provide input the street,” Venable existing right of said. “If you get on on an interactive map, way,” Darr said. to a higher-speed visit highpointmoves.

“That comes with facility like Eastchesnew highways, and ter Drive, you’re not weebly.com. that favors newer going to walk in the and larger roadways. street because it’s so “Nobody likes to walk along a dangerous.” highway with no shade where cars are And while Venable said he can apprewhizzing along,” she added. “It doesn’t ciate Darr’s advocacy for the Core City, serve people who walk.” he said it’s important to recognize that Darr said the city should focus areas on the north side where people more of its investment in pedestrian live, work and shop also need adequate infrastructure in the Core City, which sidewalks.

JORDAN GREEN

“You also have transit stops on highspeed roadways,” he said. “We want to focus on sidewalks in the Core City, but this plan will cover the whole city. You have people who ride transit who need to get to jobs. For people being able to get to shopping, to get to work, once they get off the bus, it’s important that they have a safe way to walk to those facilities.”

An interactive mapping function on the pedestrian-plan website allows users to identify locations and routes where improvements are needed. Logged suggestions reflect heavy input along the city’s Main Street spine, including requests for sidewalks around a commercial area north of Hartley Drive; retail nodes surrounding the toney Emerywood neighborhood, and the southwest quadrant; an industrial area with a racially diverse, working class population.

Predictably, one comment pinpointed near Brown Truck Brewery in Uptowne says, “Slow down traffic.”

Another comment, at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and Westchester Drive, recommends, “Sheetz is great for after-school treats with the kids. Would

Opinion Cover Story

In 2012, the Southwest Renewal Foundation applied to the state Department of Transportation for federal Safe Routes to School funds to build sidewalks around the two elementary schools in the quadrant, Fairview and Oak Hill. The state awarded $200,000 for new sidewalks around the two schools in the southwest quadrant, along with $300,000 for other elementary schools in the city. Darr said construction on the sidewalks in the southwest area is expected to begin this summer.

Meanwhile, the city has added a signalized mid-block crosswalk with a median refuge on South Main Street in front of GTCC and added signage to another one in front of Brown Truck Brewery in Uptowne.

“Any time you have new development and you have something that attracts people, you’re going to have more pedestrians,” Venable said. “With increased pedestrians in the area, we wanted to make it as safe as possible.

We want motorists to be aware that they must yield to pedestrians. Not everyone understands that rule.”

News

Darr suggested, noting the proliferation of housing, retail and dining around the pathway.

Complementing the Southwest Renewal Foundation’s efforts in the Core City area, the city has secured $1.2 million in federal congestion mitigation and air quality funds to link the High Point Greenway with the Bicentennial Greenway. The High Point Greenway currently runs from Armstrong Park through the campus of High Point University, past Andrews High School and on to Deep River Road. The new connector will provide a link to the southern terminus of the Bicentennial Greenway near the Piedmont Environmental Center on Penny Road. While there remain a number of incomplete segments, the trail corridor could potentially link High Point with the state Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Venable said construction of the connector could begin as early as August or September.

The greenway link is only one example of improvements moving forward regardless of the final recommendations in the pedestrian plan being shepherded

by Alta.

Up Front

woman Judy Mendenhall and then-interim City Manager Randy McCaslin, and the previous city council approved the request as one of its final acts in December 2014. The state awarded the grant in May 2015.

At the time, the Southwest Renewal Foundation was in the midst of working with Alta Planning + Design, a Durham firm, to develop a greenway plan. Darr said her group successfully lobbied the state Department of Transportation to award the grant for developing the pedestrian plan to Alta, based on the firm’s knowledge of the city.

Meanwhile, the Southwest Greenway Plan completed in 2015 — envisioned as a six-mile network at an estimated cost of $4.1 million — was incorporated into the city’s overall greenway plan earlier this year.

“It was important because we got the blessing of the city,” Darr said. “It will be part of the pedestrian plan. When we go out and raise funding it will have some legitimacy.”

If anyone doubts the economic value of greenways, they should look at the Downtown Greenway in Greensboro,

triad-city-beat.com

love to walk instead of driving when I live right in the area.”

Yet another commenter requests: “West Green Drive from South Main to Oak needs to be returned to twoway and made into a complete street to make pedestrian accessibility, comfort and safety more prominent to attract business and create jobs.”

The east-central core — a predominantly African-American area with concentrated poverty — is virtually untouched by comments, with the exception of requests for new sidewalks on Centennial Street.

Considering Darr’s role in lining up funding for the pedestrian plan, perhaps it’s no surprise that the comments on the interactive map are so heavily weighted towards the southwest quadrant where she lives.

The idea for the state grant for the pedestrian plan came from Jesse Day, regional planning director with the Piedmont Triad Regional Council, during a meeting with Darr’s group, the Southwest Renewal Foundation, in the fall of 2014. Darr recalled that her group brought the idea to then Council-

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

13

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

14

OPINION EDITORIAL

Jackboots at the Golden Corral It was the day before last week’s cover story, “The annotated Donald Trump,” hit the streets, a piece dissecting fact from fiction in the presidential candidate’s Greensboro address in June.

A highlight: “We are going to start winning again. We’re gonna win at every single level. We’re gonna win so much that you’re gonna beg me: ‘Please, Mr. President, we’re winning so much. We can’t stand it, Mr. President. We cannot stand it. Please, a little less winning, Mr. President.’

I’m gonna say, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna do that.’”

Before we unleashed this transcribed bit of campaign balderdash onto our readership, our reporter had already been thrown out of a Trump event — not, it should be noted, the kind for which the candidate actually shows up— at a Golden Corral in Winston-Salem.

There, Earl L. Philip, Trump’s campaign director for the North Carolina effort, after a few introductory statements, pointed out Triad City Beat Senior Editor Jordan Green to the small crowd gumming their way through yeast rolls and chocolate-dipped what-have-yous.

“I can really do some talking,” Philip said, “but I can’t because we have a member of the press here.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Candidates running for office generally don’t shy away from the print media, where their message can be amplified to thousands of people who actually care about such things. Often, it’s a candidate’s rare shot at winning over new voters through sheer strength of message.

So what does it mean when a direct representative for a presidential candidate ham-fistedly turns away press at an event in a battleground state?

Before ejecting Green, Philips mentioned that without the reporter present, he could get into what he called “the meat” — “no potatoes, all meat,” he emphasized.

And the meat, apparently, is not fit for consumption by the general public.

Insert your favorite Golden Corral joke here.

But for Trump voters, there is no irony to scheduling meetings at an all-you-can-eat buffet. There is no danger of offending anyone’s sensibilities with the kind of red meat unfit for print. And there is no discussion of the First Amendment — wherein the concept of a free press is baked right into our Constitution — when a reporter is bounced into the parking lot before the real business can begin.

Trump’s meat is a secret thing, accessible only by those who have plunked down the price for a lap or two around the buffet. And those people will eat anything.

CITIZEN GREEN

Those who give meaning to the Fourth of July

The space of freedom is enlarged only because people are willing to risk their careers, livelihoods, social status, sometimes even their very lives for it. Freedom is never frozen in place, and is always contested and

by Jordan Green challenged by those who view privilege as something reserved for a certain kind of Americans, usually white, wealthy, propertied, male, heterosexual and cisgendered.

Let us express gratitude to those who give meaning to the Fourth of July through their personal sacrifices to enlarge the space of freedom, as we reflect during a time of political peril when powerful men pass laws to control which bathrooms we use, and exploit fear and resentment to whip up hostility against immigrants and Muslims.

Thank you to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the 99 other signatories to the Declaration of Sentiments who asserted at Seneca Falls, NY in 1848 in the face of certain ridicule and hostility: “In view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people in this country, their social and religious degradation — in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.”

Thank you to Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Galloway for variously speaking out for the abolition of slavery, assisting slaves in their flight to freedom, recruiting black men and women to fight against the Confederacy and collecting intelligence to support the Union war effort.

Thank you to Gordon Hirabashi of Seattle for refusing to obey a curfew against Japanese-Americans at the start of World War II and for refusing to obey an order to be evacuated to a detention camp.

Thank you to the Barnette children, Jehovah’s Witnesses in West Virginia, who sued their school district and won a ruling from the Supreme Court in 1943 upholding the right to not say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you to Velma Hopkins, Theodosia Simpson, Moranda Smith, Viola Brown, Etta Hobson and other black women who led strikes at RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem in the 1940s to improve working conditions and wages.

Thank you to George Simkins Jr. and five others for subjecting themselves to arrest simply because they insisted on their rights as citizens to play golf at Gillespie Golf Course in Greensboro in 1955, and knocking down

the ludicrous custom holding that black residents could not enjoy the public accommodations financed by their own taxes.

Thank you to Robert F. Williams for insisting on the right to use the public swimming pool in Monroe County, NC in 1957 in response to the drowning deaths of black children who didn’t have the opportunity to learn to swim, and for repelling an attack by the Ku Klux Klan with gunfire.

Thank you to Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Jibreel Khazan and David Richmond for enduring racist taunts and harassment to desegregate the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.

Thank you to the Rev. George Lee, Lamar Smith, Herbert Lee, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Vernon Dahmer and countless other martyrs who died in the struggle to secure the right to vote.

Thank you to Muhammad Ali and all others who have refused to fight unjust and unnecessary wars against people with whom they have no quarrel, and thank you to John Kerry and other “winter soldiers” who spoke out about the realities of war as recently discharged service members.

Thank you to Sylvia Rivera, Raymond Castro, Maria Ritter, John O’Brien, Marsha P. Johnson and all those who participated in the Stonewall uprising in New York City for making it known that LGBTQ people would not be bullied by the police, demeaned and forced to live in the shadows simply for being open about their sexuality.

Thank you to Uriel Alberto, Estephania Mijangos-Lopez, Cynthia Martinez and countless other DREAMers across the country who have declared their undocumented status while subjecting themselves to arrest and risking deportation to demand the right to pursue their education, work and live their lives free of discrimination and second-class status.

Thank you to Tonya Rinehart, Andrea Angelo, Mark Maxwell, Timothy Young, Brent Morin, Jerry Morin and the dozens of other same-sex couples who presented themselves at the Forsyth County Register of Deeds Office in Winston-Salem in 2012 to request marriage certificates.

Thank you to the hundreds of North Carolinians in the Moral Monday movement who have been arrested since 2013 for putting their bodies on the line to protest the suppression of voting rights, the refusal to expand Medicaid coverage, reductions to unemployment benefits, assaults on public education and other acts by the North Carolina General Assembly.

Thank you. Your acts of boldness constitute the down payment on our freedom. Let us pay it forward with courage and compassion in whatever small ways we can imagine.

IT JUST MIGHT WORK

The internet, faster and cheaper

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

Clay Howard is the vice president of the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship in Greensboro.

Cover Story

Sales, design, furniture, landscaping, home improvements and more.

The Triad’s premiere publication for everything inside and outside your home. For marketing opportunities call Brian Clarey, 336.681.0704

Opinion

Feather your Nest!

News

speed in the Western Hemisphere — which is about 1/3 the speed of the South Korean internet, but still.

They created a city-run entity to monitor it as a utility, and then made it available to everybody for about $70 a month, and about a third of that for low-income residents.

As a result, unemployment has halved in the city, with most of the jobs coming from the VW plant, the technology sector and entrepreneurial startups. It’s further advanced an organic downtown renaissance, too, elevated by raising wages. And people have started moving back — it’s regained all of the numbers lost in the last 30 years.

There’s an obvious comparison to all three cities of the Triad, each of which seems plotted at some point along the Chattanooga continuum. And I think widespread, high-speed, fiber-optic internet access at subsidized government rates could push one of them to the tipping point.

Can it really be as simple as that?

Perhaps. No modern business can function without the utility the internet provides: email, web sales, cloud-based software and communications tools. And as we’ve seen, cities that offer this service give themselves a serious edge.

There is a sign in my office that is the first thing I see every morning when I arrive at work.

I say sign because it is really just 12 words printed on an 8.5-by-11 sheet of paper that is folded in half and taped on my office wall. I printed this

by Clay Howard sign out sometime in 2007 or 2008, and actually moved it across town with me when the Nussbaum Center took up residence in our current location four years later. I am pretty sure it was the first thing I unpacked when I got here.

The sign hangs in a strategically placed spot so that everyone who enters my office can read it, and no, it is not an inspirational hang in there sign, or anything like that. I am not an inspirational sign kind of guy — I’m more of a cynic, actually.

The 12 words are as follows: Being right isn’t nearly as important as knowing when to shut up.

Read that again. Go ahead, it’ll only take a couple seconds.

Makes sense, huh? Almost as good as those other words about treating folk the way you want to be treated. In fact, these kind of fall under that one, if you think about it.

My dad was a quiet guy, and a truly intelligent man. He was also well liked, or at least well respected, by everyone he ever worked with. I think a lot of that was because he was smart enough to heed the 12 words on my sign, but without having to have a sign; the need for a daily reminder is mine alone — well, mine and a few million other folk.

We are now almost a decade deep into a world dominated by social media with its ability to create self-proclaimed experts out of everyone, and these words could not be more relevant. Imagine a world where people sat down to surf Facebook and heeded the words on my sign, and simply moved past a post that did not line up with their thoughts. Imagine a world where there was no need to “unfollow” someone, because, even if you knew that something someone said was the dumbest thing you have ever heard, you just shut up, and kept moving. Social media is not the only place these words work — real world application is even better.

Being right isn’t nearly as important as knowing when to shut up.

I first read those words sometime eight or nine years ago, and they truly affected me. I now read them every day to push myself to heed their wisdom and shut up. Do I succeed all the time? Ha! Ask my boss or coworkers. But I have gotten better.

Twelve-step programs help people become better versions of themselves. Might I suggest a simple 12-word program?

Up Front

Chattanooga, Tenn. was a big smear of nothing in the vast Southern wasteland: fourth-largest municipality in the state, with about 175,000 people, chronically forgotten behind bigger names like

by Brian Clarey Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville. Industrial smog settled on the city, and people began to leave — Chattanooga’s population dropped by 10 percent in the 1980s. It got so that no one even remembered the song anymore.

(Note to Ginsburg: It’s called “The Chattanooga Choo Choo.”)

But they got in the game by deciding to develop the downtown waterfront around 2000, playing up a key asset, and attracting a Volkswagen assembly plant in 2008 — not to mention an Altoids factory, the only one in the world, in 2005.

But arguably the biggest move was made in 2010, when city officials realized there was one thing they could offer that no one else in the South would — not could, mind you, but would.

And so the city of Chattanooga built a fiber-optic network with what they claim is the fastest download

12 words to live by

triad-city-beat.com

FRESH EYES

15

July 6 — 12, 2016

Behind the ba Triad bartenders recount some of the most ridiculous and unbelievable things they’ve seen

Cover Story

by Eric Ginsburg

These days, my boss is too preoccupied with running a business to tell too many stories from his time as a bartender and miscreant in New Orleans. But in the five years I’ve worked alongside Brian Clarey, I’ve heard at least a dozen hilarious and usually wildly inappropriate stories involving late nights of inebriation. None are fit for print, and most wouldn’t be believed anyway.

Unless, that is, you’ve worked as a bartender, too. Because anyone who’s bartended long enough is filled with these kinds of tales, even if they didn’t spend years behind a bar working the third shift in the Big Easy.

As a booze columnist, I often hear these absurd and ridiculous recounts once my notebook is closed. I’ve done and seen some stupid things when I’m off the clock, but my anecdotes pale in comparison to what industry folks witness while pulling their shifts.

Here, a few Triad bartenders and owners agreed to share some of the good, the bad and the downright foolish things they’ve seen.

All of them — even the most forthcoming — have held back some of the more obscene incidents, but still be warned that many of their memories should at least be rated PG-13. Better yet, these bar stories are probably best suited for those of legal drinking age.

Here’s a sampling of the sorts of things that happened in and around Triad bars in the last decade or so. It’s by no means anything approaching an exhaustive oral history.

Instead, we invite other local bartenders to share their own yarns in the comment section of the online version of this piece.

16

Tiffany Howell: Owner at Burke Street Pub (W-S)

When Tiffany Howell joined the team at Burke Street Pub in 2005, she’d already spent a few years working in local bars. She’s been at the Irish bar ever since, save for a two-year period when she left to finish her degree, and in the beginning of 2015, she bought the pub.

One of Howell’s favorite stories happened a decade ago, in the summer of 2006 while she worked at the pub’s upstairs and outdoor beach bar one weekend. A beloved customer pulled himself up on the side of the fence around the patio where Howell was closing up, to where she could see him from the nose up. He offered to snag her a hot dog from a vendor nearby and she declined, but it’s what he said next that stuck with her.

“He said, ‘I love you; I love this pub,’ Trevor Austin (left) and Chris Flathers accumulated countless inappropriate stories in and then he said, ‘Burke Street Pub is to Winston-Salem what Disney World the next day to paint over his penmanship. is to America.’”

Burke Street Pub is home to three national championAnd then he fell off the fence. ship teams for a quarter-bouncing game that Bud Light Later that night, he wrote it on his MySpace page. used to sponsor — teams traveled to Las Vegas and Earlier this year, Howell used it for branding, putting it on Cancun to bring back $25,000 each in winnings, hanging T-shirts and attributing it to “BSP,” which are the man’s their oversized checks inside the bar. Other patrons have initials as well as the pub’s. left things behind too, though somewhat less intentionally, The clearest indication that Burke Street is akin to including underwear, bras, socks, wallet photos of their Disney World is another customer. Howell said this one is kids and, oddly enough, eye patches. One guy almost had fond of showing up in full costume, be it a monkey suit, to leave a front tooth.

Santa Claus getup or a beer-wench outfit. He’s affectionHowell remembers him ordering a beer right at the ately known as “our class clown,” and is known for “autocorner of the bar by the taps, and a false front tooth fell graphing every hard surface he can find” and returning out into the motor of the cooler.

triad-city-beat.com

ar

their years working at and running Stumble Stilskins bar in downtown Greensboro.

“My tooth! My tooth!” he exclaimed.

Howell could hear it spinning in the motor, but she managed to unplug the thing and force the tooth out.

The man, grateful, headed for the bathroom and stuck it back in, seemingly undamaged.

Howell prefers not to dwell on the more unsavory stories — she tries to forget them, she said, and she doesn’t want to give the industry a bad name. But she did offer one other inoffensive memory; one busy Saturday night, she looked up to see the bar’s big Altoids-dispensing machine bobbing its way towards the front door amidst the crowd. The staff quickly stopped the man, who Howell said was just being silly and seeing if anyone would notice.

Now he’s one of her employees.

Pam Cooper: Bartender at College Hill Sundries (GSO)

For bartenders like Pam Cooper — who’s been working at College Hill Sundries for 14 years, since she turned 21 — the stories start to blend together. It’s easy to take small quirks for granted, such as someone skateboarding through the neighborhood dive bar or two dogs showing up unattended but finding adoring patrons.

But a few moments still stand out to “Mama Bear,” as some call Cooper. Like the night a guy put money in the jukebox right before close, and then demanded his money

ERIC GINSBURG

back when the bar shut down and his songs hadn’t played.

Cooper told him he could come back the next day to hear them, and continued closing up. When she finished and locked the bar and left with a coworker, they immediately heard a large crash from the front of the bar — the guy had thrown giant rocks through the front windows.

Cooper ended up at the dive until 6 a.m. that morning, waiting until someone could come board up the front of the bar. Next time, she said, she’d just give the jerk a few bucks out of her tips.

Other stories that weren’t humorous at the time are funny in retrospect, like a baby possum that would crawl into the bar through a broken drain. Cooper remembers

17

July 6 — 12, 2016 Cover Story

18

looking over and seeing it atop a trash can inside the bar and everyone — herself included — freaking out.

Cooper once saw a girl giving a guy head in the women’s bathroom (and promptly kicked them out). And she recalls a former regular who started literally ankle-biting women. He bit her once too, she said, but she just yelled at him.

Cooper seemed unfazed as she retold the ridiculous stories, adding that she started the job as a “nice hippie chick” but gained friends and a better intuition about people and their behavioral tendencies behind the bar.

She still loves the job and cherishes the connections she’s made there, even becoming old-school pen-and-paper pen pals with a former regular.

She’s seen scary things at the bar including someone suffering a seizure in the middle of a karaoke number, weird things like a Dumpster full of mattresses across the street going up in flames, silly things like a squirrel that hung out on the back patio that regulars dubbed Pitter Patter and renamed Splitter Splatter when a car ran it over, and sweet things like people who moved away returning over the holidays or seeing couples who met at the bar later celebrating their engagements there.

“I know there are other dive bars in town, but this is the dive bar for me,” she said, adding that if she didn’t work at College Hill, it’d still be her bar of choice.

One more story before Cooper closed his mouth, a story well known to anyone familiar with the Black Lodge.

Somebody, or likely two people in the act of coitus, broke the sink off the bathroom wall. It took forever to repair, and the folks at the bar put up a picture of the destruction with the date of the damage, which happened to be near Sept. 11, and the words “Never forget.” People added text implying conspiracy theories and an inside job, and the Black Lodge put up lights similar to those previously memorializing the World Trade Center attack and vowed that: “We will rebuild.”

the bar, but couldn’t find her.

Eventually she turned up and Tomkinson could discern what had happened.

The woman had made her way into the storage room somehow and puked on the floor by the mop sink. Then she grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the vomit and herself before passing out on top of the mess she made.

It took forever to clean up, Tomkinson said, and the experience taught him a valuable lesson: don’t prejudge patrons, because anyone can be an out-of-control day drinker.

Sitting across from him and Bull’s Tavern owner Danielle

Jerry Cooper (no relation): Bartender at Hoots, formerly the Black Lodge and Single Brothers (W-S)

“Don’t worry,” Jerry Cooper said, directing his comments at past patrons. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

Cooper joked that the interview should end there to protect the drunken behavior of his fellow Winston-Salem residents, especially given what he’s witnessed over the years as a door guy and barback at Single Brothers and later as a bartender at the reclusive Black Lodge and local brewery Hoots.

But he still shared a couple anecdotes.

The most bizarre and entertaining comes from Single Brothers, where he would catch men pissing in all sorts of places they shouldn’t be. Once he found a guy relieving himself in a flower pot right near the picnic tables alongside the bar. Cooper said he grabbed the guy by the back of the neck and forced him out of the bar with his member still swinging in the breeze. The guy tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal, naturally.

Another time, at the Black Lodge, Cooper “essentially put this dude in a full nelson and dragged him through the bar” in order to break up a fight, while a coworker kept chatting with patrons as if nothing were happening. The two guys fighting were friends with each other, and Cooper too, but he still needed to kick one of them out. Once outside, the guy tried to flip Cooper and get the better of him, but instead Cooper ended up slamming him through the bar’s sandwich board.

The guy landed in the nearby gutter, and later needed a medical boot on his foot, but he came back later and apologized to Cooper for his behavior.

Pam Cooper, seen here on the back porch of College Hill Sundries, remembers seeing a baby possum perched on top of a trashcan inside the bar.

Danielle Bull: Owner at Bull’s Tavern (W-S)

featuring her employees Greg Gerald (formerly of Ziggy’s) and Nate Tomkinson The best story anyone told may come from Nate Tomkinson, the door guy at Bull’s Tavern in downtown Winston-Salem. It was a Wednesday, and early, too, when a woman likely in her mid forties showed up with some regular heavy drinkers and started knocking back Michelob Ultras.

At one point Tomkinson turned back and realized the woman was drunk, so he brought her some water. Moments later she disappeared, though her friends remained, which worried Tomkinson. Her friends ran up and down Fourth Street looking for her while Tomkinson searched

ERIC GINSBURG

Bull at a local bottle shop, Greg Gerald offered a story from his days at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem that may be even more outlandish.

The music venue and bar was hosting a Wake Forest University fraternity party when he saw five guys go into the bathroom together, a suspicious move that suggested possible drug activity. But when Gerald followed he was shocked to find the young men with their pants down standing in a circle, measuring their members in front of each other.

“No no, you measure from the base!” he remembers hearing. The students defended their actions by saying it wasn’t what it might look like, adding that they were following through on a bet. Gerald wishes he could un-see it.

Bull remembers plenty of good stories, too, including one Halloween when a guy teetered over the bar, ready

who’d crapped his pants and police in two cruisers argued over who would have to take him in before staff helped wrap the man’s legs in trash bags for safer transport.

They’ve witnessed countless faceplants, and Tomkinson once saw a bike cop, likely in his fifties, flying down Fourth Street, hit his front brakes and fly over the handlebars to tackle someone in one swift motion — like Superman — to break up a fight, he said. They saw someone else get arrested and placed in the back of a cop car only to kick out the rear windshield and escape, running down the street in cuffs.

They’ve seen plenty of women partially and accidentally

Danielle Bull, owner of Bull’s Tavern in downtown Winston-Salem, ended openmic night at the bar after a “horrific” rendition of Alicia Keys by a singing mime.

about a woman who appeared on “America’s Got Talent” and would show up and ruin open-mic night. Once the woman sang a “horrific” rendition of Alicia Keys while she had a stuntman lift her up, Bull said, all while Brian Duffy and the camera crew from “Bar Rescue” happened to be in Bull’s Tavern for an after-work drink.

Once they kicked out a guy only to see him strip to his boxers and start screaming in the pouring rain out front before being tackled by the police. They’ve found a child’s birth certificate, Christmas gifts, at least four child-support checks, a hunting license and three iPhone 6s the same day the model came out, Bull said. Tomkinson found panties on the floor before 9 p.m. once, and saw an entire purse emptied into a toilet bowl. Gerald said he’d seen “an upper decker” in a toilet at Ziggy’s, but that’s nothing compared to the time they called the cops on someone

ALEX KLEIN

topless, especially after booze-heavy street festivals. They retold a story of two women coming in after a tanning convention and each putting both of their hands down a man’s pants. Bull saw a man get down on one knee and propose one night when the lights came on to end the evening. And she’s overheard too many bad dates, especially Tinder hookups, than she’d like to admit.

Bull’s been in the game long enough that she pays “puke money” — $20 to clean up vomit, a policy she instituted after she tried to clean up chunky vom on the wall outside the bathroom and started hurling herself when she felt some land on her new pattern tights. All in front of customers, who also saw her tear the tights off and chuck them into the puke pile.

There are other stories, many of them, like the time early on Bull had to kick a bathroom door in on someone

filming a sex act who refused to stop or leave when she caught them. But those might not belong in print.

Chris Flathers and Trevor Austin: Co-owners of Stumble Stilskins (GSO)

Chris Flathers’ bar stories predate the founding of Stumble Stilkskins, the downtown Greensboro sports bar he opened with Trevor Austin in late 2004. Like the time Jon Bon Jovi was hanging out at the old Rhino Club and Flathers caught a woman stealing beer from the back.

But most of the memories the friends offered took place inside their own venue, especially in the early days.

The night Austin found a man pissing all the way down a back hallway and pushed him into it with a foot to the behind. The night a guy jumped on a table, performing an Ozzy Osborne song that blared from the jukebox while someone flashed the lights inside, though they can’t remember how exactly the man wound up out cold on the sidewalk.

The night a woman squatted to pee into a trash can in the men’s room, or that they saw a guy dressed as Mario for Halloween stimulating a woman — probably with his big fake Mario glove still on, they said — or the woman who flashed them repeatedly for shots for a year straight, not realizing they’d been reciprocating with non-alcoholic shots they called “Cotton Candy.”

They stopped each other short of telling several stories, or offered highlights from others like a woman being told to get off a table and instead jumping from table to table before mis-stepping and tipping the table vertically, then hitting the floor. There’s a host of stories that recall the Mario incident sans costumes.

But others are a little more innocent, like the old days when Flathers, Austin and other area bar owners and ’tenders played a friendly game of thievery, stealing items from each other’s venues including distinctive tap handles and wall art and mounting in their own establishments, seeing how long it would take someone to notice. Once someone nabbed an alien-shaped piñata Flathers had brought in from the old Rhino, and periodically sent him Polaroids of the alien in various bars. In one, the alien posed smoking a cigarette, but eventually it came home.

Chris Flathers and Trevor Austin are older now, and not behind the bar as much as they used to be. There’s a hint of nostalgia in their voices, for the early days when they could get away with harmless mischief like the cordial thefts, sort of like Tiffany Howell’s Altoids story. I’m sure the two have stories that mirror the debauchery Brian Clarey’s told me about on his smoke breaks, or the secrets Jerry Cooper is going to keep to himself. But if you want those stories out of any of these folks, you might need to buy them a couple of drinks first.

triad-city-beat.com

to puke behind it when a bartender batted him in the face “like a volleyball” to keep him from puking into the ice container. She saved the ice but knocked him and his spew onto three patrons by accident.

Tomkinson followed with a story of a woman reaching up a man’s shorts while they sat at a high four-top with two friends in the middle of the bar. He walked up, trying not to draw attention to her tugging, and asked her to stop. The woman played dumb, but when he insisted she finally relented. Things went back to normal, Tomkinson said, and the four continued ordering drinks.

That’s nothing compared to Bull’s singing mime story,

19

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE Pork chops, cornbread and a little chill

by Eric Ginsburg

W

hen Lamar told our server that we came for the kind of food he could get at his grandmother’s house, I immediately agreed, despite never having met her or trying her food. But I recognized the sentiment in his remark — a desire for comfort food, the kind of home cooking and Southern, soul goodness that isn’t easily replicated.

I grew up near one set of my grandparents, but my Jewish grandmother’s cooking in Massachusetts is legions away from what my friend experienced growing up in a Southern, black family in Greensboro. I gleaned some of the cultural differences firsthand when Lamar and I lived together for a year, him moving effortlessly in the kitchen as he perfectly seasoned and fried various cuts of meat.

And I owe much of what I know about Southern food to Lamar, too — he introduced me to Stephanie’s, Boss Hogs, United House of Prayer and other local touchstones of the black-owned restaurant scene. So when he told me that we should try Prime Tyme — a soul-food restaurant in Winston-Salem — and told our server he wanted grandma-style food, I didn’t need to ERIC GINSBURG I enjoyed everything at Prime Tyme in Winston-Salem, especially the baked chicken (center). The hesitate. potatoes and onions (bottom right) were a little salty, but the mac & cheese and fried cornbread were better.

Even when we started with an order of gizzards.

If you’ve never had chicken gizzards, they can be air a little too cold swept through. Some people dined Not that I don’t like more quintessential Southern pretty off-putting — tough, incredibly chewy muscle outside on the front patio, and we noticed a covered food — I made fried chicken for dinner tonight, actutissue deep fried and dipped in hot sauce isn’t exactly outdoor smoking area along the side of the restaurant. ally, celebrate macaroni & cheese like it’s my beloved something I grew up seeing on menus. I’m pretty sure It echoed a sports bar more than it recalled Stephpet that ran away and just came home, jump at every I first had them at Lamar’s; he’d picked up an order at anie’s, which brings in a considerable after-church opportunity to go to my Southern girlfriend’s family KFC and insisted I eat half of them while we played crowd in south Greensboro. cookouts and fish fries, and sometimes feel cheated video games at his place a few months back. This time, We both ordered soul-food plates (because duh), that I grew up in Yankee territory. But I passed on a little more prepared, I enjoyed them more, but I still him picking the pork chops — opting for one grilled Lamar’s potato salad, prefer grilled and seasoned okra wouldn’t count myself among the converted. and one fried — with potato salad, fried okra and fried and favor regular cornbread to the pancake-shaped Lamar prefaced our meal by saying that everything cornbread and me selecting the baked chicken, the fried version. he’d had at Prime Tyme was good. Our server prefmac & cheese and the potatoes & onions with fried I’m no heretic — I’d order the $3 fatback sandwich aced the meal by asking for our drink orders and then, cornbread. at Prime Tyme before the Philly cheesesteak — but I’m before we could respond, offered: “Two teas?” Lamar We could’ve added fatback, and I imagine we also not obsessed with some strange and mistaken asked for tea mixed with lemonade and I followed suit, would’ve liked it, but as it was we’d already ordered idea of soul-food purity. Neither is Lamar, who tried and when they arrived he commented that the fact more food than we could finish. to convince me to split the mozzarella sticks before I that the two substances didn’t separate in the glass Surprisingly, we both preferred pushed for chicken livers or gizzards, but that doesn’t proved its legitimacy. the grilled pork chop to the fried mean we don’t arrive with high standards.

The restaurant is unassuming alternative. Though both were And when we left, exhaling deeply and self satisfied, Visit Prime Tyme Soul from the outside. At the edge of a satisfying and we’d typically pick we agreed that Prime Tyme had done right by us.

Food Café at 2730 Universtrip mall along University Bouthe other, the grilled chop retained levard just south of Wake Forest sity Parkway (W-S) or at more of its mouthwatering flaUniversity, Prime Tyme opened in primetymesoulcafe.com.

Pick of the Week vor. I’d chosen the baked chicken 1996 and claims to be “the bess [sic] because I figured I should have a Two hops in a pod soul food in town.” I can’t say any little chill, and the first bite briefly Beer and Cheese Pairing with Triad NC Girls Pint Out different, but I trust Lamar’s endorsement, especially overwhelmed me and caused me forget what we were @ Foothills Brewing (W-S), Sunday, 3 p.m. after eating there. talking about.

Milk and cookies. Peanut butter and jelly. And Prime Tyme is often slammed on weekend nights Baked chicken may not be flashy or even all that now, beer and cheese. Like the cool urban cousin of Lamar told me as we looked around the relatively associated with Southern cuisine or soul food, at least the stuffy wine and cheese standard, let the Girls empty lunch room on a Wednesday, surveying the long not like other combo options like the croaker, beef liver Pint Out crew coach you through different pairings bar with a limited liquor selection and noticing the or fried chicken. I scoffed when Lamar turned up his to test your palate. You’re invited to stick around banners for NC A&T, Winston-Salem State and Wake nose at a sample, disinterested in my allegedly basic for jazz and dinner after. Details on the Foothills Forest on the ceiling. Televisions turned to sports chanchoice. That’s his loss, because I’d easily rank it as the Facebook page. nels flashed quietly as slow, gentle music played and best thing we ate.

triad-city-beat.com

Greensboro’s first distillery

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

Andrew Norman (above) is part of the family of four operating Greensboro Distilling, dba Fainting Goat Spirits, in downtown Greensboro next door to Gibb’s Hundred Brewing on West Lewis Street.

ERIC GINSBURG

Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

a year ago, and Andrew wanted the business to be a ment to local grains — all but the barley come from part of that rebirth, even if downtown is more expenSugar Hill Farm in Robeson County, and the minimal sive. amount of barley it does use is sourced from a malt They’ll have to expand beyond the space pretty house in Asheville. And maybe more significantly, the quickly to accommodate the whiskey barrels, but even company doesn’t buy a pure-grain alcohol base spirit if demand is high for the Emulsion gin and Tiny Cat to jumpstart the process, as many distilleries do, a vodka — yes, that’s what they’re called — the producpoint that the family prides itself on. tion facility on West Lewis Street should be able to There isn’t much time left before the date set as a keep up. goal for Fainting Goat Spirits products to be in liquor Bill and Andrew said they plan to have their product stores, but the Normans are still tweaking their gin in stores a month from now, with tours and tastings recipe. While they declined to disclose the ingredients at the distillery taking place later in August. A tasting publicly, it will likely include several spices and flavors room with a bar top and shelves commonly found in gin besides already stacked with Fainting juniper and may even incorporate Goat Spirits’ merch flanks the a vegetable.

Visit Greensboro Distilling street-facing open area where While they’re still playing with Co./Fainting Goat Spirits at the mash, distilling and bottling the exact ratios, the family is 115 W. Lewis St. (GSO) or at operation will take place. waiting on federal approval for faintinggoatspirits.com.

A relatively new state law alits bottle labels, a source of much lows distilleries to sell one bottle kvetching among other distillper customer per year on site; it’s ers. The bottlenecks will feature a big improvement from before, when all sales had a small, extended tag, a stiff flag for the company’s to happen at an ABC store, but it means that people signature. won’t be able to take home a bottle of one of each The family behind Greensboro Distilling already has spirit after a visit. That may change, Bill said, allowing thoughts for the future — maybe exporting to Italy or Greensboro Distilling use its smaller experimental still China, and they have an importer’s license and could to play around with smaller batches that would otherbring in rum or tequila to barrel-age. But for now, wise never reach consumers. they’re mostly focused on the last few weeks before One of the fundamental things setting Greensboro their eight-year dream of seeing their own distillate for Distilling apart from most distilleries is its commitsale becomes a reality.

Culture

It began, as few business ideas do, on a family vacation.

What started as a distillery tour on a trip to Seattle germinated for the subsequent eight years, only to begin poking its head above the

by Eric Ginsburg soil in the thick heat of this Greensboro summer. And now Bill Norman, his wife Shelley Johnson Norman and kids Andrew Norman and Lesley Norman Hobbs are anxious for it to bloom.

It’s practically time.

Located in what used to be the Forge makerspace in downtown Greensboro next door to Gibb’s Hundred Brewing, Greensboro Distilling is capable of producing 50 gallons of spirits a day. The family-run business has already negotiated for its products to land on the shelves of 200 state ABC stores, beginning with its vodka and followed soon by its gin.

The whiskeys, which will take anywhere from 18 months to 20 years to mature in barrels, won’t be on the market until much later. But with everything in place, Bill Norman planned to start filling barrels on Monday.

The company — with products appearing under the name Fainting Goat Spirits — is the Triad’s third legal distillery, at least in the modern era, and the first in Greensboro. It dwarfs Sutler’s Spirit, the Winston-Salem boutique producing excellent gin and soon rum.

And while it more closely mirrors the size of Broad Branch Distillery in Winston-Salem, the breadth of Greensboro Distilling’s product line in unparalleled in the Triad.

Greensboro Distilling’s smoked single-malt will be its first whiskey, available in about 18 to 24 months, followed by a straight rye whiskey that will take at least two years to ready. The straight bourbon won’t come out for at least four years, and the family will save some of it for 20 years or more.

Andrew Norman, 28, spent a decade working in finance in Charlotte before returning to his native Greensboro to help launch the business. In their ideal world, Bill will oversee the mash process while Andrew distills, but right now the two work in tandem, overlooking a stripping run of the vodka and overseeing the installation of a glycol chiller.

Standing on the distillery’s back patio, which abuts a reclaimed alleyway behind HQ Greensboro co-working space and leading to Elsewhere artist collaborative, Andrew said it’s remarkable how much the center city’s changed since his childhood. The shift is obvious; a few feet away from him, a rainwater barrel leads to a tiny manmade pond with a shimmering orange fish in it while food grows nearby and a sign reading “I love your work” lines a rooftop overhead. None of it existed

21

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Homecoming concert showcases Greensboro players’ ties to Africa

by Jordan Green

H

umidity clung to the air as the heat began to ease in the early evening and Super Yamba Band took the stage at the outdoor amphitheater at Barber Park in Greensboro for the Levitt Amp Music Series on June 30.

A smattering of fat raindrops had intimated at the threat of a downpour on the west side of the city, but it looked like there might yet be a reprieve.

The lawn swooped up from the stage between two radiating rows of pine trees and listeners reclined on lawn chairs, juggled batons or meandered over to Preyer Brewing’s beer tap.

Super Yamba Band’s taut, circular groove — a fat wedge of Afro-funk with pulsing bass, serpentine melody radiating from an electric guitar, groovy, futuristic keyboards, syncopated percussion and blaring horns — was energizing yet still relaxing enough that few audience members felt obliged to dance. But midway through the band’s first number, the groove roused a four-foot black garter snake, apparently theretofore unnoticed, that had been lying coiled on the ground in front of the stage, deceptively similar to the black cord running from the stage to the sound booth. When the snake began to move a couple people jumped back, causing a chain reaction in the crowd, and those in the front warily watched the creature make halting progress to the side. Eventually, two Greensboro police officers calmly approached, and one prodded the snake with his boot, prompting the snake to take refuge in the grove of pines.

Super Yamba Band, better known as the Brand New Life, is one of Greensboro’s more unique exJORDAN GREEN Eric Burns, Walter Fancourt, Daniel Yount and Sean Smith (l-r) of Brand New Life turned in a ports. Formed in 2009, the Brand New Life quickly simmering set of African-inspired music at Barber Park in Greensboro on June 30. established a heavy funk sound indebted to the tions. They met Mamadou Mbengue, a Senegalese griecho-y courtesy of Smith, “N’diarabi” brought to mind late Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti that also ot in North Carolina, which prompted an exploration a shimmering psychedelic haze of a Lagos, Nigeria explored ventured into jazz and rock territory. With of mbalax, the pop music of Mbengue’s native country nightclub circa 1971. saxophonist Walter Fancourt, drummer Daniel Yount, that is especially evident in Frierson’s talking-drum As a measure of the band’s dexterity, Super Yamba percussionist Evan Frierson and bassist Seth Barden of style. Members of Super Yamba Band also perform Band’s set moved seamlessly from a revival of some Greensboro forming the nucleus, along with trumpetwith Mamadou’s Fantastic Band. older material from the Brand New Life that gave er Sean Smith of Charlotte, the band decamped for More recently, Super Yamba Band has collaborated Fancourt the opportunity to blow a free jazz, sheets of Brooklyn in 2013. They met guitarist Eric Burns in New with Ismael Kouyaté, a Guinean griot, dancer, choreogsound-style solo on saxophone, while the restrained York. rapher and singer, releasing a song called “N’diarabi” reggae groove and relaxed tempo of another song feaThe band has had the opportunity to share the stage that features Kouyaté on vocals in late May. turing Smith on trumpet evoked the Cuban-born ska with Antibalas, perhaps the most prominent Afrobeat During Super Yamba Band’s performance at Barber exponent on the East Coast, along with Seun Kuti, who Park on June 30, they invited Diali Cissokho, whose leads his late father Fela’s band Egypt 80.

Pick of the Week band Kaira Ba headlined the concert, to join them The group has recently started performing its more Weapons of mass seduction onstage.

Cissokho, a Senegalese griot and kora player African-inspired music under the name the Super Something Like Seduction with Lovely Budz @ Bulls who now makes his home in the Triangle area, conYamba Band, with plans to explore indie rock, psyTavern (W-S), Thursday, 9 p.m. tributed rousing vocals to the number in Kouyaté’s chedelic and pop music under the moniker of Future This three-piece reggae outfit hailing all the way stead, although he seemed somewhat hampered by an Heart. Yount said the two formats of the same group from Arizona stops in Winston-Salem for their inability to hear himself in the monitors. Will Ridenour of musicians is more of a natural progression than the Lunar Lander tour. Equal parts spliffy garage band of Kaira Ba added a muscular heft with his djembe outgrowth of any deliberate plan. and Jamaican vacation soundtrack, it’s hard to tell playing, alongside Frierson on talking drum.

Super Yamba Band’s African music palette continues if they’re serious or seriously silly. So go find out for With a talking drum opening and reverb-laden keyto expand beyond the Afrobeat template established us. Check the band’s Facebook page for ticket info. boards that become progressively more haunting and

by Fela Kuti in the early ’70s through various collabora-

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL FIND...

Eclectic

triad-city-beat.com

Selling Lindley Park

Frank Slate Brooks

by Nature

Broker/Realtor®

336.708.0479 cell 336.274.1717 office FrankSlate.Brooks@trmhomes.com 1401 Sunset Dr., Suite 100 Greensboro, NC 27408 trm.info

INCENSE • CANDLES • JEWELRY & MORE 336-373-0733 • 414 STATE ST. • GREENSBORO

Up Front

trombonist Rico Rodriguez.

Near the end of Super Yamba Band’s set, members of Kaira Ba again joined them onstage for a cover of “Mi Ve Wa Se,” a song by the legendary Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou from Benin.

The heady brew summoned by the musicians spiked by Fancourt’s exhilarating and fierce saxophone solo provided a tell for Super Yamba Band’s MO — not inflexible adherence to tradition, but an orientation towards West Africa as a focal point, ever absorbing and adapting new influences.

03 Lexus ES 300

10 Ford Fusion

07 Toyota

07 Audi A4

07 Jaguar XJ

News

336-375-1880 • Taylor’s Auto Sales • taylorsautosales.com 09 BMW 3-Series

Opinion

Auto, Leather, FWD

$9,995 SEL, Auto, FWD

$12,995 Highlander, V6, Auto, FWD

$13,095 Auto, Leather, AWD

$14,995 XJ8LAuto, Leather, RWD

$15,795 Auto, RWD, Leather

Cover Story

$8,995

Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad

September 22-25, Downtown Greensboro GreensboroFashionWeek.com

All She Wrote

IS COMING

23

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Korinna Sergent gives shape to Sylvia Plath’s darkness

by Joanna Rutter

W

hen Korinna Sergent’s friends heard that she was doing a Sylvia Plath-themed solo show, the first thing they asked was, “Kori, are you

okay?”

It was a legitimate concern to voice, given that her emotional connection to the poet grew from one of the darkest seasons of her life. But there was no need for her friends to fear. Looking at her mixed-media pieces in the gallery at Urban Grinders in Greensboro, each illustrating a different poem by Plath, it’s clear in Sergent’s work that she’s letting some light in now.

When she first encountered Plath’s novel The Bell Jar in 2013, Sergent was experiencing her biggest psychological break after personal trauma and simultaneously undertaking a 8-foot-tall mixed-media piece that consumed her to the point of needing a break from the pursuit of art.

“When things started to slip for me — it feels as if you’re next to a swamp, or something,” she said in an interview. “There’s zero tread underneath your feet, you’re sinking, you try to grasp earth, but it just doesn’t exist anymore. Right when I began slipping, I picked up The Bell Jar.” A bus ride from Tennessee to Chicago with only the novel for company gave her the space to finish the book “really intensely,” she said.

“Ever since then, I held onto Sylvia Plath very dearly,” Sergent said. “Not as a light at end of tunnel, because I know how her tunnel ended, but as a moment with JOANNA RUTTER Korinna Sergent’s solo show at Urban Grinders in Greensboro this month explores the tensions between the darkness of mental health and expressing that darkness to connect with others. myself to know that other people experienced the things I’ve experienced, and in that moment, there was even more potent presence on its large canvas. arts community in Johnson City, Tenn. while attending clarity.”

Sergent’s relocation to the Gate City from WilmingEast Tennessee State University, running pop-up live In her show at Urban Grinders, which opened July ton was an intentional move toward the burgeoning painting shows and being mentored by painter Mira 1 and runs until the end of the month, that clarity inart scene she saw growing in town.

Gerard, with whom she shares an approach to art as forms her small collection of disturbingly provocative A year and a half in, Sergent said the connected a form of psychological insight and communication. and literal translations of poems from Plath’s collected enclave of artists in the city has provided a nurturUnder Gerard’s mentorship, Sergent was not only clasworks. As gallery hoppers and friends filtered up the ing space for her to explore multiple mediums and sically trained in oils, but spent six months on a large stairs during the opening, visitors all seemed pulled projects. A lucky last-minute open spot in an Ultimate mixed-media piece that so exhausted her reserves of magnetically to the central piece, “Lady Lazarus,” feaPainting event at the Center for Visual Artists in the strength Gerard had to talk her out of symbolically turing a veiled woman with flaming red hair, bleeding spring of 2015 served as her body bound in medical tape. initiation into the local scene.

The poem is taped up next to Pick of the Week Catch the visually translated “I was really warmly welthe piece, and reads, “Dying/ Is James’s World comed,” Sergent said. “I’m an art, like everything else. / I poetry of Sylvia Plath in Korinna Fringe on Film series presents James Castle: Portrait trying to appreciate all the do it exceptionally well.”

Sergent’s solo show up at Urban of an Artist @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), opportunity I’ve had basically The rest of the show is Grinders at 116 North Elm Street Thursday, 6 p.m. laid at my feet in Greensboro.” equally haunting, especially in Accompanying the museum’s main traveling exThose opportunities have in Greensboro through end July 31. pieces like “Childless Woman,” hibition showing five self-taught artists, this hourincluded live painting at events featuring a beaked feminine long 2008 film by Jeffrey Wolf traces the beginnings hosted by Jeff Beck of No Blank monster with a swollen belly, of one of those artists — perhaps the strangest of Walls, painting a community mural with students from splotches of strange earth tones mottling its skin, or the bunch — a deaf man born in rural Idaho whose Irving Park Elementary School through the Greensboro the chaos found in “Tulips,” a hodgepodge portrait used soot and spit to make art expressing his Mural Project and collaborating with illustrator Beka comprised of steel wool, painted plastic and other otherwise uncommunicated private world. The film Butts on another mural in progress in High Point’s textures on canvas, with a terrifying purple eye peering is likely as haunting as his work, which you can see historic Washington Street district across from the 512 out at the viewer. “Ariel” is a nightmarish, powerful after the screening. Details at weatherspoon.uncg.

Collective. mermaid creature with yonic symbolism, vivid greens edu.

Sergent thoroughly involved herself in her undergrad and reds, with clumps of hot glue giving the monster

triad-city-beat.com Up Front News

(336)210–5094

abroach@earthlink.net

Cover Story

Mary Lacklen • Allen Broach • Bob Weston

Opinion

Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

Culture

JOANNA RUTTER

Shot in the Triad

ary’s Gourmet Diner

(336) 723-7239

breakfastofcourse.com

All She Wrote

you’re not sure if it’s going to completely swallow you one day, you at least want to f*** with it back.”

In Sergent’s eerie feminine monsters, she joins Plath in treating darkness “as its own being,” which is why she respects and identifies with the writer’s work, she said.

“I don’t pick up the baggage, I don’t decide to take it with me,” she said. “It’s just there all the time. Sometimes it’s across the ocean and sometimes it’s right there, looming.

And that’s how Sylvia Plath was. She talked about it, spoke to it. At times, people need to see that.”

Disclosure: Sergent previously worked as a TCB sales representative.

Games

burning it after she was done.

In using mixed media and painting as a means of giving shape to trauma, depression and suicidal ideation, Sergent and wordsmith Plath are like-minded artists.

“I think just as a person who deals with any type of mental disorder, depression, that slipping — I think you always feel that, that ideation never goes away, especially if you’re a creative person,” Sergent said, recalling the sensation of intentionally teetering over the edge of a bridge in college.

“I just wanted to feel how it feels to touch death — not to end things,” she said. “Because if you feel this darkness looming over you all the time, and

Fun & Games

Sergent’s piece “Ariel” features a terrifying, mermaid-like monster from the titular poem by Sylvia Plath.

25

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

26

FUN & GAMES

T

by Anthony Harrison

he Iron Cross was a Prussian military medal awarded for extreme bravery through most of the 19th and 20th centuries. But Germany no longer pins it on its gallant soldiers; furthermore, they’re banned from production in the country.

That’s because the Nazis

Heritage or hate?

— one that made my skin crawl.

On the ridiculous spoiler that surely does nothing to improve its alleged “0-50 in 11 minutes” acceleration time, an Iron Cross was painted.

If I’m anything, I’m anti-fascist, thus leading to my discomfort; after spying the symbol, I backed away slowly and ogled a pristine ’61 Chevy Biscayne coupe in Carolina blue.

I’m also ignorant. So I did some research.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Iron Cross, though illegal in Germany, holds a different history in America. Two ’60s countercultures — bikers and surfers — adopted the cross in the postwar world.

Surfers especially were known to wear the Iron Crosses their GI fathers looted from soldiers across the Western Front. Bikers used the medal for its shock value.

Neither group adopted the design to make nationalistic or supremacist statements.

Also, I’d forgotten this: While Germany disavowed the Iron Cross as a medal, the Bundeswehr — the country’s armed forces — still uses a modified version of the symbol as its insignia and decorates heroes with a gold Cross of Honour for Valour.

After my reading, I found myself less disturbed by the Iron Cross on display at the car show.

Even the ADL states, “The use of the Iron Cross in a non-racist context has greatly proliferated in the United States, to the point that an Iron Cross in isolation

coopted the Iron Cross.

Hitler personally awarded lots of them, including an extra-special Grand Cross to Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring for blitzing the hell out of Holland, Belgium and France.

Despite this link with the epitome of evil, Iron Crosses appear in America.

Heavy Rebel Weekender, Winston-Salem’s long-running rockabilly festival, features everything from bands and tattoos to burlesque and a pre-’72 car show, which I attended on July 2, hoping to see some beautiful American muscle cars and hot rods. Of all the cars lined up and down Trade Street and its tributaries, perhaps no other car attracted more attention than Weekend Warrior.

Weekend Warrior resembled no other jalopy I’d ever seen before. True to its name, the car boasted an impressive arsenal of no less than a half-dozen plastic firearms, ammo boxes and belts loaded with spent .30-caliber brass, a grenade hood ornament and a shark-mouth paint job on the sides of the hood reminiscent of World War II-era nose art found on Curtiss P-40 Warhawks flown by the 1st American Volunteer Group, the Flying Tigers.

Other military allusions were plastered on the Warrior. A ginger pinup leaned seductively on the rear-left side of the car in a ’40s-style livery painting. POW/ MIA logos appeared on the automobile, as did the saying, “All gave some, some gave all.”

The Weekend Warrior was a kitsch masterpiece, unrecognizable from its original form.

“It’s a Volkswagen!” one gawking woman said. “A ’67 Volkswagen! Where in there, I don’t know.”

Many hot-rodders repurpose old Beetles due to their ubiquity and relatively low purchase price, dubbing the final product “Volksrods.”

The Warrior’s country of origin Weekend Warrior is adorned with weapons, a hand-grenade hood ornament and the Iron Cross — all in good fun. explained another military design

[…] cannot be determined to be a hate symbol. Care must therefore be used to correctly interpret this symbol in whatever context in which it may be found.”

While my gut reaction was unfounded, it still nags me.

Symbols carry different meanings in the eye of each beholder. Some symbols may not faze certain groups, but others may take offense.

I associate the Iron Cross directly with Nazism because I’m a history nut; a bonus negative association comes the Axis occupation of Greece, which my grandparents endured.

Still, I get why some may not link the cross with hate. To them, it’s a nonconformist badge.

But let’s compare it with a design we all recognize: the Confederate Flag.

The Stars and Bars polarizes our nation. The argument, “Heritage, not hate,” always arises in discussions over its meaning. And many well-meaning Southerners fully believe in this side of the debate and proudly fly the flag, whether it’s pasted on the rear windshields of pickups or waved at Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts.

Yet, in the present political climate, many interpret the flag as the ultimate American regalia of white supremacy; those who refuse acknowledgement of its problematic status run the risk of abetting racism.

Similarly, the Iron Cross persists as a neo-Nazi signifier. In 2011, the ADL reported white supremacists’ increasing association with the motorcycle clubs popularizing the cross’ harmless status.

Maybe I’m being a reactionary, overly PC liberal by letting it shake my nerves. After all, it’s not as though I believe the owner of Weekend Warrior is a Nazi; after the initial shock wore off, I figured the cross was benign. None would doubt the owner’s patriotism.

And I saw it elsewhere: For example, tiny Iron Crosses adorned the tops of door locks in a ’33 Ford V8 coupe, the very same car from Chuck Berry’s classic, “Maybellene”: “Nothin’ outrun my V8 Ford.”

Nor do I fear any Heavy Rebel Weekenders. Those I’ve met are delightful people, as full of hate as newborn babies.

But maybe, in these tumultuous times of further normalized bigotry, we should rethink whether the Iron Cross remains innocuous or not.

Pick of the Week

ANTHONY HARRISON

Dashing hopes Myrtle Beach Pelicans @ Winston-Salem Dash (W-S), Thursday, 7 p.m.

The Pelicans broke the Dash’s heart last year in the Carolina League playoff semifinals, but the remnants of that Winston-Salem squad seem out for blood. Pitcher Jordan Stephens shut out Myrtle Beach in his six innings on Monday, so the finale of this four-game home stretch should prove interesting. For more info, visit the Dash page on milb.com.

‘They Took Their Vitamins’ all six are represented.

by Matt Jones Across

Down

TV Club Presents “Preacher” Based on the hit comic book series! 9 p.m. Sunday, July 10. Free Admission With Drink Purchase!

Star Trek Countdown Featuring the TOP 50 EPISODES of Star Trek.

7 p.m. Wednesday, July 13. FREE ADMISSION!

TV Club Presents MR. ROBOT (SEASON PREMIERE!) Based on the hit comic book series! 10 p.m. Wednesday, July 13 Free Admission With Drink Purchase!

Totally Rad Trivia

8:30 p.m. Thursday, July 14 $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

Cover Story Culture

Cone-bearing evergreen Bitter salad green Internet enthusiasts, in 1990s slang “Gangnam Style” performer Car company with a four-ring logo Sense of intangibility?

Gets ready to drive Reacted with pleasure “Uncle Remus” character ___ Rabbit HPV, for one J.R. Ewing, e.g.

Shows again Portmanteau in 2016 news Brangelina’s kid Kind of trunk Danger in the grass Shoulder-to-elbow bone “I’m hunting wabbits” speaker

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 17 23 25 26 28

30 Fix up, as code 32 Word between dog and dog 34 Bar accumulation 36 Wardrobe extension?

37 Fancy ways to leave 40 “You betcha I will!”

41 Like a small garage 42 Message on a dirty vehicle 43 Like mercury at room temperature 45 Cover in the kitchen 47 Hammer mate, on old flags 49 “Family Ties” mother 50 Not even me 53 R&B singer with the five-album project “Stadium” 55 “Where America’s Day Begins” island 58 International aid grp.

60 “___ Mine” (George Harrison autobiography)

News

53 He was “The Greatest” 54 Clothe, with “up” 56 Triple ___ (orange liqueur) 57 *Arsenio Hall’s rapper alter ego with the song “Owwww!”

59 *Two-time Grammy winner for Best Comedy Album 61 Buddies, in Bogota 62 Not just by itself, as on fast-food menus 63 Fixed up 64 Land attached to a manor house

SUMMER TIME BREW N’ VIEW PRESENTS “Ghostbusters” The 1984 Classic!

See it before the new one hits theaters! 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 9 $6 ticket includes FREE BEVERAGE

Up Front

1 Overlooked, as faults 8 Drink in 14 Take for granted 15 More Bohemian 16 *”Do the Right Thing” actress 17 *Singer/percussionist who collaborated with Prince on “Purple Rain” 18 “Ew, not that ...”

19 French 101 pronoun 20 This pirate ship 21 Commingle 22 They’re taken on stage 24 Like pulp fiction 26 Mata ___ (World War I spy) 27 Boost 29 Friend-o 30 Actress Kirsten 31 “Hello” singer 33 Carved pole emblem 35 *”Full Frontal” host 38 ___ umlaut 39 Small towns 41 Silicon Valley “competitive intelligence” company with a bird logo 44 Exercise count 46 Wise advisors 48 Brand that ran “short shorts” ads 49 Bankrupt company in 2001 news 51 LPGA star ___ Pak 52 Abbr. after a lawyer’s name

Playing July 9 – 14

triad-city-beat.com

GAMES

Fun & Games

Answers from previous publication.

Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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

27

28 All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad Games

Fun & Games

Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

News

Up Front

July 6 — 12, 2016

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

South Elm Street, Greensboro

America.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

triad-city-beat.com Up Front News

Alina Kiryayeva with High Point Community Concert Association October 6

The Nutcracker performed by High Point Ballet December 21-23

Acts and dates subject to change.

For the latest news, go to HighPointTheatre.com

The Blackpack: All Laughs Matter March 24 The Hillbenders: The Who’s Tommy, A Bluegrass Opry March 31 Will Downing April 1 3 Redneck Tenors Down Home Laughs, Big City Music April 29 Dr. Elliot Engel presents The Brilliance of Sir Walter Raleigh May 16

Shot in the Triad

Will Downing: Prince of Sophisticated Soul

The Summit: Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 February 25

Games

An Evening with George Winston November 11

Ken Lavigne: The Road to Carnegie Hall February 14

Fun & Games

Ken Lavigne: the Road to Carnegie Hall

Robin Spielberg January 26

Culture

Jon Reep with MollyAnn Wymer September 23

Conversation & Song with Peter Yarrow January 21

Cover Story

Billy “Crash” Craddock’s Country Jam with Michael Cosner & The Malpass Brothers July 16

Artrageous!!!

January 14

Follow us on:

Opinion

Introducing another exciting season from the High Point Theatre!

FOR TICKETS, call 336-887-3001 or visit HighPointTheatre.com

All She Wrote

For Tickets, call 336-887-3001 or visit HighPointTheatre.com

29

July 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

30

ALL SHE WROTE Of mice and men

M

e: It looks like they ate the poison.

David: Who? The mice or the guests?

by Nicole Crews Me: Well it does look a lot like aged, white cheddar. Let’s just hope the mice don’t haunt us. We’ve had enough of that for one evening.

was to grant Jacob Lettle a license to operate a tavern.

In colonial days Rowan County boasted 142 taverns — important establishments providing travelers places to sleep, eat and drink. After the Ghost Walk we are desperately in need of the latter two.

We hit La Cava — all 14 of us — and massacre a haute Italian meal before seeking out one of Rowan’s infamous taverns. You see it’s karaoke night at Tamarac Marina and we are loaded for bear. Skynyrd is at full wail when It’s dappling daylight sunny side our overdressed crew rolls onto the up on the sidewalks of Salisbury. chicken-wing strewn deck. There’s more Nonetheless, it’s the bewitching hour black leather than Madonna’s closet for the town’s heralded Ghost Walk. and enough beer to float a Canadian Home to 10 National Historic Register Goose across the border.

Districts and more than 1,200 historical We laugh. We dance. We sing. We properties, this burg that resides dance some more. It comes to my 10 minutes from my Rowan County attention out of the corner of my eye lake house is also that my honor is home to surprising being defended numbers of

by Dapper David.

Apparently a hulking paranormal activity.

Apparently a mass of sweaty T-shirt From the Girl in hulking mass of the Window to the had been surreptitiously sweaty T-shirt had Lynching Tree, from been surreptitiously grinding behind me and a grinding behind me the Confederate Prison to the Empire confrontation was afoot. and a confrontation Hotel, from the was afoot. Clad in Sessions House a handmade Italian Graves to Thyatira shirt and a clear “Pirates,” it’s straight up Ghostbusters dozen inches shorter the hulking mass, around these parts but in this case you David stood tall and the mass stood won’t be calling Melissa McCarthy. down. The two hugged it out and the You’ll be calling Karen C. Lilly-Bowyer only casualty of the evening was said — the woman who literally wrote the Italian shirt. No dead bodies. No ghosts. book on the subject, the “Wettest & Just a whiskey-fueled night out in the Wickedest” Town, the Legends & Ghosts place that whiskey built. of Salisbury. Or at least the folks that operate her website salisburyghostwalk.

Reserve this ad for com.

It’s also been dubbed the Town that Whiskey Built and I’ve got a flask in tow in honor of this tradition. The Rev. John B. Tucker conducting the tour is not Call Dick at amused.

(336)402-0515 A petition by the people helped or email at establish Rowan County and its dick@triad-city-beat.com courthouse in 1753 giving area farmers and laypeople a place to do their business closer to home. Salisbury was established as a township in 1755 and the first act of the Rowan Courthouse

$39/week.

L’ITALIANO

Large 1-topping pizza

1199

$ Gate City Vineyard is a modern, Christian church that exists to serve the community around us. Our desire is to help people of all ages and backgrounds grow in their understanding of God.

Good through 7/12/16

Monday – Thursday

Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net

219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • 336

WE !

DELIVER

triad-city-beat.com

PIZZERIA

274 4810

At the Vineyard you can come as you are and be yourself.

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

gatecityvineyard.com

336.323.1288 204 S. Westgate Dr., Greensboro

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

(336) 456-4743

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

31

triad-city-beat.com

Illustration by Jorge Maturino