TCB July 20, 2016

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com July 20 – 26, 2016

FREE

A true-life Pokémon Go adventure by a grown man PAGE 16

Hip-hop style relief PAGE 8

Questions for white people PAGE 15

Drag is sport PAGE 24

July 20 — 26, 2016

JULY 22 URBAN JAZZ COALITION & WILL DONOTO | OPENING PERFORMER - WILL DONATO JULY 23 ENVISION (R & B/SOUL)

EXPERIENCE … EMF

Tickets are available through Saturday, July 30.

PERFORMANCES TO INCLUDE: EMF Open House

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

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

Eastern Festival Orchestra Saturday, July 23 / 8 PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College Experience the world premier of Sir Andre Previn’s latest work, internationally renowned violinist James Ehnes and the Eastern Festival Orchestra.

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

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

EMF Season Finale Saturday, July 30 / 8 PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College Eastern Festival Orchestra features award winning pianist William Wolfram playing Rachmaninoff for the final performance of EMF’s 55th Season.

Ticket information & Sales 336-272-0160

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

Get off McCrory’s lawn

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

by Brian Clarey

NEWS 8 Street volunteers serve the poor in Winston-Salem 10 Business owner makes run at Trudy Wade 12 HPJ: Marching against police violence

OPINION 14 Editorial: NC matters 14 Citizen Green: Hypocrisy on police body cameras 15 It Just Might Work: Economic democracy 15 Fresh Eyes: Questions for white people

21 Barstool: The Beer Growler 22 Music: Music fitting the heat 24 Art: Where drag is a game, and also a sport

COVER

FUN & GAMES

16 Chosen: A true-life Pokémon Go adventure by a grown man

26 The silver hour

CULTURE 20 Food: Mole, chilaquiles and a phantom restaurant

22

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

28 North Davie St, Greensboro

ALL SHE WROTE 30 The night janitor (with apologies to John Le Carré)

GAMES 27 Jonesin’ Crossword

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I have been using video games as a means of escape since I got my first home-version of Pong when I was 8 years old. By the time Space Invaders came out, I was dumping quarters into the machines at arcades, bowling alleys and pizza joints. Around 1979, two years after it launched, the Atari 2600 began heavily saturating the market. My parents had the same attitude about video games as their parents had about rock and roll: a trashy trend that would surely rot your brain, and they promised that I would never own one.

— Brian Clarey, in the Cover, page 18

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

brian@triad-city-beat.com allen@triad-city-beat.com

jorge@triad-city-beat.com

dick@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

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

EDITORIAL INTERNS Naari Honor

Jesse Morales intern@triad-city-beat.com

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

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

Cover illustration by Jorge Maturino

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green SALES EXECUTIVE Korinna Sergent 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.

I started my delivery route just after dawn, and despite the oppressive heat finished the job in the early afternoon. I sped through my paperwork and was preparing to run myself through the shower and slip on my boots when I got the news.

The party at the Governor’s Mansion was canceled.

I should say that generally I don’t give a crap about parties, but this one was different. Believe it or not, I’d never been invited to the Governor’s Mansion before. And this one was being thrown by my friends at Indy Week, the alt charged with holding down the state capitol. Even more: There was a delicious irony to this shindig. To coincide with the fabulous Barry Yeoman cover piece that both of our papers ran last week, the Indy and Progress NC had rented out the garden in the mansion to hold an anti-HB 2 party, in effect rubbing the governor’s nose in his own figurative fecal matter right in his own backyard.

How could I miss that?

But then Gov. Pat McCrory got wind of what was about to happen — or he finally opened his Facebook invite and saw the details — and shut it down.

It was a total bummer, and not just because I’d be missing out on some sweet catering (the Indy knows how to throw a garden party), but because this is the type of pre-emptive response I’ve come to expect from the Republicans in power in our state.

This is the crowd that, when warned by scientists that rising sea levels would threaten the Outer Banks, passed legislation outlawing the way these scientists measured sea rise. When it looks like a Republican might lose a seat, they redraw the districts to favor their own. When teachers organize against unfair practices against their proIt was a total bummer, and fession, they sugnot just because I’d be gest a law making political agnostimissing out on some sweet cism a condition catering, but because this is of employment. the type of pre-emptive reThey rewrite the sponse I’ve come to expect. rules, move the goalposts, reframe history — anything to remain the prevailing voice in Raleigh and continue pushing North Carolina backwards, entire decades at a clip, while quashing opposing voices as if listening to the people they’re governing was not a requirement of the job.

That’s how you build an echo chamber, and a garden party with the Indy is not part of the playbook.

It might have ended up being a crappy party anyway — McCrory seems like one of those guys that makes people use coasters and take their shoes off at the front door.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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July 20 — 26, 2016

CITY LIFE July 20 – 26

by Jesse Morales and Naari Honor

ALL WEEKEND

Central Carolina yarn crawl @ Stitch Point (GSO) Get your stitch on with the crew from Stitch Point. Go yarn crawling from pillar to post to rack up some amazing gift baskets from from Thursday through Saturday starting at 10 a.m. Why should grandma have all the fun? Rumor has it that one basket contains the book Knitting Ephemera: A Compendium of Articles, Useful and Otherwise, for the Edification and Amusement of the Handknitter. I hear it will leave you in stitches! Get it? No? Search Central Carolina Yarn Crawl on Facebook for detailed info.

WEDNESDAY Salsa and bachata lesson @ Bongos (W-S), 8:30 p.m. ¡Ay caramba! Salsa Winston-Salem presents this one-hour crash course for beginning dancers, with music by Lionel and Kelly. Bachata (salsa dancing’s Dominican cousin) fills the first half-hour of dance instruction, while swinging salsa wraps up the class. The Facebook event page declares, “After the class, we party!” — and hips don’t lie if the class doesn’t take. Head to Facebook for the dossier on this dance showdown.

THURSDAY

Krik? Krak! book discussion @ Delta Arts Center (W-S), 6:30 p.m.

Afro-Caribbean literature scores a well-deserved plug at this conversation hour on Krik?

Krak! by Edwidge Danticat. While the jury’s still out on what krik krak means, the event organizers describe Danticat’s book of nine short stories as a meditation on “struggle and survival within the Haitian community.” To get crackin’ on discovering more, visit the event’s Facebook page.

Police and Community Forum @ City Hall Council Chamber (HP), 6 p.m.

Following the Black Lives Matter Walk 4 Peace held in High Point last Saturday, the High Point police department will host its own community event. The department says “the forum will serve to explain how High Point does policing in a way that has helped the community avoid many of the issues that other departments face around the country.” To raise your voice alongside that narrative, call 336-883-3124 for info on attending.

FRIDAY

Best of 2016 GSO 48 Hour Film Project @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 7 p.m.

For the mumblecore-loving locavores of the Piedmont Triad, this event is probably de rigeur. While the event’s microproduction ethos may clash a bit with the glam red carpet and post-show awards, who really cares? The Greensboro vibe thrives on artistic contradictions. Fair warning to fans of Cecil B. DeMille style epics: A two-day filming window likely yields modest production values. If you’re in, though, go to carolinatheatre.com for the hot tips.

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triad-city-beat.com

SATURDAY Pokemon Go Walk NC #1 @ Merschel Plaza (W-S), noon Can’t get enough of Brian Clarey’s cover-story investigation into Pokemon Go as a cultural phenomenon? (Alternatively, tryna spot that rare bird singular milleniallis without using Tinder?) Yeah, we know how it feels. Judging by the event’s Facebook roster, so do almost 1,500 Triad Pokemon players. Due to mass interest, the organizers of this firstof-its-kind event advise participants to “wear your team colors and bring water to stay hydrated.” The Facebook event page has complete info.

Reggae Fiyah @ After Hours Tavern (HP), 9 p.m.

Fiery tunes and tastes feature at this Sat-nite groove session, at which the event organizers encourage folks to “put your lighters up!” Pure Fiyah Reggae Band will deliver the beats, along with vocal artist Daughter Earth. The King and Queen’s #1 Haitian Cuisine food truck will also be on site. Look up Reggae Fiyah on Facebook for more.

Cry-Baby

Lunch counter integration celebration @ the International Civil Rights Center & Museum (GSO), noon Amid the tragedies of racism and violence in recent weeks, this celebration brings the best of Greensboro’s historical legacy to bear on our present. “Food trucks on February One Place and tours of the lunch counter” are open to everyone, even if Dr. King’s dream is not yet realized. To show up in honor of the A&T Four’s historic Woolworth’s counter sit-ins, visit sitinmovement.org.

SUNDAY

Hitchcock’s Black Comedy

Big Ron Hunter @ Washington Terrace Park (HP), 6 p.m.

As the weekend winds down, Piedmont blues musician and international performer Big Ron Hunter plays an outdoor show for everyone. FYI, he’s also “called the world’s happiest bluesman” — isn’t that an oxymoron? Facebook it for deets.

BLUE HAWAII

LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL

TUESDAY

Official ribbon cutting celebration @ Shelf Life Art & Supply Co. (GSO), 11 a.m.

Shelf Life’s official first birthday celebration will be nothing like that ’90s home video reel in which Bob Saget voiced a cake-smashing baby. Nope, the fact that Greensboro Chamber of Commerce dignitaries will officiate means that Shelf Life is totally adulting now. “Refreshments” will be served post-ceremony — doesn’t that sound refined? Search the event on Facebook if you plan to view the snip.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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A new path of justice and end to racial profiling With much sorrow, I learned of the recent deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota again involving racial profiling. Then, as our city and nation were sharing this great grief together, the cycle of racial profiling and violence came full circle with tragic, five officer deaths in Dallas on July 7.

As a young African-American male from a low-income neighborhood, I can relate to being harassed by local police officers who would shadow my car because of its tinted windows and flashy car rims looking for some type of assumed illegal activity. I quickly learned how to divert the police officers by driving into well-lit shopping areas to stop the racial profiling.

I have been blessed to date because I have never been stopped and brutalized, arrested, or killed.

As a faith-based leader, I hear a persistent cry for a great awakening to end the senseless racial profiling of hardworking, everyday people of color. It is time to forge a new path of justice, trust and integrity for our country’s law enforcement agencies. We have to work together to end this systemic racial profiling as well as the silent and hidden Jim Crow policies perpetuating institutional racism throughout our city and nation. If not, we will continue to eulogize too many more of our black brothers and police officers. A city or nation that accepts prejudice and racism as the status quo cannot continue to thrive, because every human life must matter.

Rev. Robert Leak III, Winston-Salem Editors’ note: The writer is president of the New South Community Coalition and president of the Easton Neighborhood Association in Winston-Salem.

Beer is solid, but what’s up with that sign?

Agreed: The beer is very solid, it’s a great place for warm weather, and the staff is super friendly [“Barstool: Joymongers brewery opens”; by Eric Ginsburg; July 12, 2016]. But yeah, “what’s the deal” with three different typefaces and the metal sign being placed a good 15 feet away from the brewery sign? The blue sign is great and very clean, but the metal “Joymongers” sign is just a hair too close to Comic Sans for comfort.

Sam Logan, via triad-city-beat.com

8 things to remember when getting tattooed

by Naari Honor 1. Cleanliness is next to godliness, even in a tattoo parlor If you’re expecting to be inked under sanitary conditions, then don’t you think it is only fair that your own personal hygiene be in check as well? You are about to get up close and personal with this artist whose nose is going to be inches away from your flesh. Doesn’t it make sense to give them clean skin to work with?

5. Just because it looks good doesn’t make it good for you Remember that what looks good in a magazine may not be the best piece for your skin, work well with your complexion or fit in the space you have chosen for your next piece to go.

2. Bartering is strongly discouraged There are individuals out there who are willing to peddle their flesh for ink, play the friend card to leverage a discount on services, or even come to a tattoo shop with the intention of negotiating, I learned while hanging out with Erran “Ether” Hamlin at Basement Tattoo in Winston Salem. All of the above is frowned upon in most tattooing establishments.

“We are commissions-based artist,” Hamlin said. “You are paying me to design something that is going to be permanent on your skin. I don’t buy cheap materials or supplies so that you don’t end up with a cheap tattoo.”

7. You came to an artist so let an artist make art “Don’t be over particular about your design,” Hamlin said.

“We do like having direction of where we are going to go with your idea but we have to have some type of artistic freedom to do a good job and make sure it flows.”

3. “No alcohol, marijuana, or pills beyond this point” A tattoo consists of needles injecting ink under a layer of skin. You are going to feel something when you get a tattoo.

For some, there may or may not be a level of pain associated with the process. As Hamlin likes to say, “Don’t cheat the pain.”

“We don’t judge people for how they want to deal with pain but there is a certain level of tolerance that we have,” Hamlin said “Drinking too much is going to thin your blood, getting high is going to make you sensitive, and taking pills never turns out good. Go in knowing why you are there.”

6. State the purpose of your visit Don’t be the person who says, “I don’t know what I want. I just came in for a tattoo.”

While it is best practice to give your artist some degree of artistic freedom, at least have an idea of what you want.

8. Tipping not required, but it is appreciated “Tipping is like saying to your artist that even though they asked you to pay one price you realize they have gone above and beyond to make you that special piece and you appreciate them for it,” Hamlin said.

4. Just say no to price shopping Searching for the right artist for you is to be expected. But don’t choose your artist based on who can give you the best deal.

“You want to base what you are going to put on the rest of your body off of the skill and experience of the artist,” Hamlin said “You don’t want to go looking for the cheapest price because then you’re definitely going to get cheap Tattoo artist Erran “Ether” Hamlin of Basement Tattoo in WinstonSalem inks up a client. quality.”

NAARI HONOR

triad-city-beat.com

Are you playing Pokémon Go? 60

Brian Clarey: I’m playing it and loving it, duh. See this week’s cover story beginning on page 16.

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40

Eric Ginsburg: I’m the prime demographic (28-year-old white dude) but I never got into Pokémon in the first place — I don’t even play as the characters in Super Smash Brothers — and I’m not about to start.

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20

Yes, duh!

I was playing, but stopped after I walked into traffic.

28%

No, and can we stop talking abou this?

Fun & Games

The People’s Perk

All She Wrote

room where customers can paint, and with a shared art and writing book open for community use. By treating its patrons as “citizen artists,” the People’s Perk manages to create the kind of rare magic that can leave you feeling creatively recharged after spending time within its walls.

Let’s be real: Where else in Greensboro can you find a haul of greasy goodness fresh from Donut World daily — along with Diego Rivera posters and handmade patches in support of Black Lives Matter?

Plus, the People’s Perk strong “female owned and operated” presence stands out in the Greensboro coffeehouse scene.

Besides coffee, the last item I purchased there was a greeting card that quotes Rose Schneiderman. I relish its words, which echo the People’s Perk’s characteristic feel. ”What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist,” it says.… “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”

Shot in the Triad

I, for one, sense an atmosphere of community solidarity emanating from the Perk as soon as I arrive. Bright flowers and a charming hand-painted sign adorn the walkway to the spacious shop area, where co-proprietors Nancy Lenk and Karen Archia have been slinging coffee since October 2013.

Lenk and Archia generated the idea for a joint-run coffee shop as both navigated a transition away from the non-profit world. Still, the two women rack up an impressive list of non-profit organizing experience, including longtime work for the fair housing and labor movements.

Now, Lenk volunteers with the Creative Aging Network.

In keeping with the duo’s history of a community-building business ethic, Lenk said the People’s Perk exists in part to “encourage people to have conversations about social justice issues” in a safe and comfortable space.

“We believe everyone can create,” Lenk said.

The Perk backs up Lenk’s vision with a separate studio

Games

by Jesse Morales During my undergrad years at UNCG — a time for me of free thought, free love and philosophical maximalism — Tate Street Coffee’s jazz nights were my syncopated paradise.

Fast-forward a couple years, to my more cynical College Hill Sundries days, and I’d often find myself slugging down a PBR on the patio there, staring wistfully across Mendenhall Street. You see, on those sultry summer evenings, groups of skater kids too young for the dive scene would roof-sit on the vacant building across from College Hill and stare back.

That exchange was what I would come to know from MJ Zaborowska’s writings as a “gulf of otherness between cultures and individuals.”

The People’s Perk, a community-oriented coffee joint, now inhabits that same white cinderblock structure on Mendenhall Street — and explicitly challenges any “gulf of otherness” that might exist between its customers.

Culture

63%

9%

Cover Story

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Opinion

New question: Which issue that the NC General Assembly is ignoring would you rank as most important? Vote at triad-city-beat.com!

News

Jordan Green: Nope. Got other fish to fry.

Readers: The majority of our readers who responded are playing, with 63 percent saying, “Yes, duh!” and another 9 percent voting for “I was playing, but I stopped after I walked into traffic.” The remaining 29 percent of you aren’t on board, selecting “No, and can we stop talking about this?”

Since this one’s pretty straightforward and there isn’t too much to say about it, we did a quick poll of our office for some added breadth — intern Jesse Morales and Art Director Jorge Maturino both aren’t playing Pokémon Go, either.

Guess we’re out of touch.

Up Front

In the spirit of this week’s cover story about our editor in chief being a huge nerd (just kidding, it’s actually very mainstream), we wanted to ask our readers if they too are playing Pokémon Go. But as far as the Triad City Beat office is concerned, it appears Brian Clarey is alone.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

Street volunteers fill a gap in services to the poor in Winston-Salem

by Jordan Green

Volunteers who are distributing free food and clothing in response to a crisis at a lower-income housing community and chronic homelessness in Winston-Salem view themselves as a movement.

Cedric Duke, an imposing bouncer with a linebacker’s build, slides out of the backseat of Jennifer Blue’s Dodge Charger, right leg extended, after she pulls into a space in the Rolling Hills apartment complex on a recent Friday afternoon.

Duke, who wears an Airtype T-shirt inscribed with the words “Winston-Salem, City of Industry,” limps to the curb and suggests that Blue back the car to the sidewalk so they can unload food from the trunk. Duke’s hobbled condition is the result of knee surgery two days earlier, made necessary when an intoxicated club patron hit him with a car on a sidewalk. “I had told him I was gonna take his keys away,” Duke later explains, “and I should have done it.”

Duke and Blue haul out cardboard boxes of pre-packaged meals — hamburgers, corn and mashed potatoes.

They also have cheese sticks, single-serving containers of Honey Nut Cheerios and cartons of milk — plain and chocolate. The food comes from an anonymous donor, Duke says. Christopher “Kountry Kane” Camps and Herman Wanshiya, having followed Duke and Blue over in a separate car, amble over to help hand out food.

“Y’all tell ’em we’re feeding out here,” Duke calls out across the lawn to one of the apartment buildings. Three girls and a young man soon materialize, and Duke hands them each meal packages, as Kountry doles out milk cartons.

“Here you go, baby,” Blue says as she hands one of the girls a cereal container.

“Want some cheese?”

“Is there some more kids?” Duke asks.

“Tell ’em to come on and eat.”

So it goes: Clusters of unattended children, moms, young guys and older men gravitate to the Charger. One says he’ll tell a family he knows to be hungry about the food, and another offers to bring some meals to someone

Christopher “Kountry Kane” Camps handed out milk cartons to three girls at Rolling Hills apartments in Winston-Salem on July 15.

who doesn’t get around very well. After about 30 minutes, it appears that everyone has food who wants it, and the four volunteers start talking about heading over to the Bethesda Center for the Homeless to serve another meal.

Duke and his friends have been coming to Rolling Hills to serve food every day for the past couple weeks since learning that the apartment complex was in a state of virtual collapse, with lack of running water and electricity, an infestation of roaches and bedbugs, and in some cases, raw sewage running over the floors. Plagued with a reputation for violence, the apartment complex was transferred from the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem to a real-estate investment group based in southern California in 2011, then sold again to two partners in New Jersey in 2014. City inspectors have found multiple code violations, and city officials are pledging to relocate families and find new owners.

Meanwhile, on this sweltering Friday afternoon many residents are sitting outside in the shade to get relief from units without functioning air conditioning.

Duke has been serving food to homeless people at the Bethesda Center for several years, but his work as a bouncer led to his involvement in the community relief effort at Rolling Hills. The mother of a black man who was killed earlier this year asked Duke and Kountry to provide security at a Stop the Violence Cookout on June 25. That’s where Duke met Effrainguan Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, who invited him to a weekly meeting held every Thursday evening at the Carl Russell Recreation Center, where residents share information and coordinate action on various community challenges.

“I told them: ‘Until this problem is solved I will be out here to feed people,’” Duke says.

Blue, a playwright and domestic

JORDAN GREEN

violence advocate from Detroit, joined forces with Duke because of her interest in outreach to people experiencing homelessness. She mentions that she’s a survivor of domestic violence and was formerly homeless herself.

“We as a community have to take care of one another,” she says. “Sixty-three percent of homeless women are homeless because of domestic violence.

It goes hand in hand.”

Kountry and Wanshiya both got involved because of their former boss, Eric Pegues, a hip-hop promoter who was fatally shot outside the Paper Moon Gentlemen’s Club in late May. Pegues had helped Blue, and encouraged his employees to get involved. Kountry and Wanshiya donated money, but didn’t volunteer their time at first. Kountry says that, far from Pegues’ social outreach functioning as PR for his business, he threw parties so he could raise money to provide for social needs, including

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

performs under the name Piiiiipe, runs Offering to a Hungry Nation. On the same day Duke’s crew is distributing food at Rolling Hills and the Bethesda Center, Pollock is driving up to the Northside Shopping Center to deliver clothes and canned goods to a woman with six children. The next day he’ll host and cookout at a location near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Fourth Street. Pollock and Duke have collaborated on cookouts and pizza parties in the past.

At the Bethesda Center, Duke and Blue give out the rest of the pre-packaged meals and most of the remaining chocolate milks. Duke announces that Kountry and Wanshiya will be coming along later with sandwiches and fruit.

He asks some volunteers from the center to set up folding tables in the parking lot to prepare for the next meal.

Duke chats with Robert A. Baldwin III, a volunteer at the center with an earnest manner whose forearm and neck bear tattoos — “pimp” on his forearm and “Wu-Tang Clan” on his neck, respectively. Baldwin, who moved to Winston-Salem from Miami, reveals that he lives with schizophrenia and reports to Duke that he’s working on obtaining permanent housing and going to court to clear up some legal trouble.

Duke mentions in turn that Baldwin is often good for a $5 contribution.

While Duke is engaged in another conversation, Baldwin quietly confides, “I got a Hallmark card [for Duke] inside; I want everyone to sign it. I don’t have a job right now, but I figured I can afford a $5 Hallmark card.”

Duke is talking about the generosity of the poor, and about a posture of humility when serving the poor that comes from recognizing that anyone could be in the same situation. Vance Clark, wearing a Carolina jersey, picks up the thread.

“Hope is something you can’t see,” he says. “He gives us hope. Once you get that meal you can go out and look for a job. Without that donation, there’s no food here. It’s just a step. Faith is something that’s not seen. I believe in this place, but I also believe that there’s going to come a time when I’m no longer going to need to be in this place.”

triad-city-beat.com

buying a prom dress for a high school student and paying for friends’ funerals. Kountry says the night Pegues was killed what most excited him was plans to serve food to homeless people with Duke the next day.

“Everybody’s not blessed to get three meals a day,” Kountry says. “Kids is innocent. For it to get better, we’ve got to educate them on how to live, how to be successful.”

A natural leader, Duke makes a point to share credit for the outreach efforts at Rolling Hills and other communities of need across the city. His prolific Facebook presence, including periodic live streams and updates that highlight needs while thanking others for their assistance, has contributed to a near viral response. He mentions a woman from Concord named Christina Lefler who drove to Winston-Salem to personally delivery 28 cases of water. He scrolls through his mobile phone to display photos of volunteers manning shop-vacs to remove raw sewage from some of the apartment units.

The Irie Rhythms restaurant has donated food, he says. Courtney Porter-Thompson, who runs the Positive Image Performing Arts dance studio, has offered to pick up the children and provide free dance lessons. Scrolling through his Facebook messages, Duke points out a woman from Kingston, Jamaica who is asking how she can contribute children’s clothing, and another message from a woman in Toronto pledging to send cash.

Duke and his crew are not the only ones providing food at Rolling Hills, as he’s quick to mention. He notes that a woman would be bringing a food truck the following Sunday afternoon, and the Key Club would be holding a cookout later in the afternoon.

True to Duke’s word, as he and Blue roll out of the parking lot in her Charger, five souped-up cars with oversized wheels roar into Ferrell Court, circle the roundabout at the far end of the complex and then parade into the main parking lot, revving their engines to a deafening roar to announce their presence as they prepared for the cookout.

Duke’s Social Heart outfit and the Key Club are not the only street-style freelance food-relief crews. In addition to a host of churches, a hip-hop performer named John Pollock, who

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Business owner makes run at arch-conservative Trudy Wade

by Eric Ginsburg

Democrat Michael Garrett is challenging incumbent Republican state Sen. Trudy Wade for Guilford County’s District 27 seat, and he believes he can win.

When Michael Garrett talks about his campaign for state Senate, he doesn’t land the easy blows on incumbent Trudy Wade, knocking her for an attempt to dramatically restructure Greensboro City Council elections, her support of the discriminatory House Bill 2 or her controversial and failed attempt as a council member to reopen the White Street Landfill to municipal solid waste.

He wants people to vote for him, he said, and not just against Wade.

That’s probably wise because the issues that make the state senator most unpopular with some people would play best in Greensboro. And while that’s where Wade and Garrett both live, District 27 mostly snakes around the city.

State Senate District 27 includes 11 precincts in west-central Greensboro, reaching all the way to Garrett’s home near the heart of the Lindley Park neighborhood. But most of the district covers rural Guilford County, blanketing McLeansville, Pleasant Garden, Jamestown and incorporating some of High Point. The Senate districts are gerrymandered in a way that the heavily Democratic-leaning areas of Greensboro and High Point are grouped into a slot currently represented by Sen. Gladys Robinson, places where voters are most likely to oppose the arch-conservative agenda pursued by Wade since she left the Greensboro City Council in 2012 to represent District 27.

But Garrett believes that the right kind of campaign with a strong volunteer base and ground outreach game can defeat Wade, arguing that he’ll draw broad-based support that includes Republicans unsatisfied with his opponent’s hardline tack. The district is split with 40 percent registered as Republicans and Democrats respectively and the remaining 20 percent unaffiliated, Garrett said. In 2012, Wade’s Democratic challenger Myra Slone only garnered 41,870 votes to Wade’s 56,865 — or 42.4 percent to 57.6 — suggesting difficult but not insurmountable odds.

Democrat Michael Garrett

In 2014, Wade ran unopposed.

Garrett isn’t new to elections; he ran before against state Rep. John Blust as a Republican in 2010, but Blust walloped him in the primary, 3,757 to 1,461. He’s also managed his mother Darlene Garrett’s successful campaigns for Guilford County School Board.

A small-business owner who runs a niche business-to-business marketing company, Michael Garrett has lived in Guilford County since age 2, attending Northwest Guilford High School and graduating from UNCG with a degree in business administration.

He’s been civically engaged since high school, he said, and in recent years has served on the Guilford County Gang Commission, Guilford County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, the United Way’s Education Impact Council, the UNCG Excellence Foundation Board of Directors and as the president of his alma mater’s alumni association and chair of its alumni board.

It’s fair to say that he’s concerned about education; it’s the first campaign issue he brought up in an interview, sitting in his well appointed living room with a copy of Garden & Gun magazine’s The Southerner’s Handbook on a coffee table and an untouched bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon decorating a mini bar in the corner. Outside, he didn’t have a yard sign up promoting

Republican Trudy Wade

himself despite living at a busy intersection — only because he was about to mow his lawn, Garrett said, and indeed

by Tuesday, he’d put one back up.

When Garrett talks about the issues that matter to him, he’s quick to say he’ll focus on building bridges and providing effective representation. To him, that means constituent services, be it responding directly to residents, returning calls from the press, speaking at public forums and inviting feedback so as to remain accountable and transparent.

Wade has infamously dodged media requests in office, leading a television station to camp out at her office to try and talk to her about efforts to restructure the Greensboro City Council.

Wade did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article.

Garrett also brings up matters that Wade hasn’t taken up in office, particularly wages and income, and sky-high food hardship rates in the Greensboro-High Point metro area. He argues that current tax policies penalize small businesses and working people.

Sen. Wade’s website trumpets lower personal and corporate taxes under the Republican-controlled General Assembly, resulting in a state ranking from a think tank called the Tax Foundation that moved from 44th to 16th from 2014 to 2015. Garrett and other Democrats hammer the General Assembly for abys-

mal teacher pay and declining enrollment in education programs that Garrett said will lead to a teacher shortage, but Wade’s website celebrates increased educational funding that “sets the average teacher pay above $50,000 for the first time in state history,” hiring almost 450 additional first-grade teachers and support of a controversial move to lower tuition at specific public universities that some argue is an attack on schools serving predominantly students of color.

Garrett said that in his role as chair of UNCG’s alumni board, he had a frontrow seat to the negative impact of the General Assembly’s policies on students, staff and faculty. But he’s also concerned with primary education, raising the school-to-prison pipeline and a desire to keep kids out of the legal system when possible as priorities as well, and adding that he would work to raise teacher pay “to at least the national average.”

Garrett didn’t raise HB2 as an issue on his own during an interview, but said he believes it needs to be fully repealed, calling it a “trainwreck” that illustrates what happens when legislation is rushed through “without deliberate conversations.”

“I think any discrimination is wrong, but it’s also bad for business,” he said, pointing out that several major employers in North Carolina agree with him.

Garrett has never held elected office;

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the flexibility to work remotely and set his own hours. Wade also runs her own business, Jamestown Veterinary Hospital. Garrett, like Wade, isn’t married, and said his limited home-life commitments will also free him up to be an effective state senator.

Wade emphatically endorsed Donald Trump at the candidate’s Greensboro campaign rally last month, has worked to reduce environmental regulations and pushed a budget provision that could kill downtown tax districts such as the Business Improvement District in downtown Greensboro. She’s received considerable support in her state Senate races from political action committees, and she’s also a science-fiction author.

The results of the Senate District 27 race may depend on how much support Wade enjoys and what inroads Garrett can make between now and November.

But it could just as easily come down to what happens up the ticket with the presidential race in a state that is expected to be among the toughest contests of 2016.

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Wade served at large on the Guilford County Commission from 2000 to 2005, followed by five years on Greensboro City Council before being elected to the state Senate in 2012. She currently co-chairs the agriculture/environment/natural resources and appropriations on natural and economic resources committees and is the vice chair of the state and local government committee, while acting as a member of six standing committees including education, finance, healthcare and appropriations, according to her website.

Garrett doesn’t see his relative inexperience compared to Wade as a problem.

“I would just ask, ‘What have you gotten for that experience?’” he said, adding that Wade “doesn’t appear to respect her voters” and that this election would be the only way for residents of Guilford County to hold Wade accountable.

Though Garrett said that running a small business as he does is “all consuming,” he is confident he could find the time to serve effectively in the seat in part because he’s found time to run a serious campaign and because he has

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

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Energetic group marches against police killing of black men

by Jordan Green

Ignoring inclement weather, about a hundred people marched against racist police violence in High Point, with both organizers and police ending on a high note.

The march started at a church on Brentwood Street with hardly more than a couple dozen people.

But by the time the group — chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot” — passed the Snack Corner store on East Green Drive, their ranks had grown to about a hundred, with people coming out of their houses to join, or smiling and cheering them on from front porches.

Organized by brothers Travis and Parris London, the July 16 march wound through a predominantly black, economically depressed section of east-central High Point, drawing people like High Point Councilman Chris Williams and Human Relations Commissioner Jason Yates.

The marchers headed west on East Green Drive, accompanied by a robust police escort, then rounded the corner at University Drive, taking up a lane of traffic, and circled back on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Brentwood Street. A steady patter of rain did little JORDAN GREEN Protesters marched up East Green Drive to decry police violence against black men on July 16. to discourage the energy of the marchers, many of whom wore matching stopped for a friendly chat with MatWhite said stereotypes of young, “Officers’ lives are being taken,” white T-shirts emblazoned with the thews and to take shelter from the black men contribute to their deaths at White said. “Hopefully the body words “black lives matter,” with the I weather on his porch, nodded in agreethe hands of the police. cameras and a lot of what happened in formed from a silhouette of the iconic ment.

“A lot of cops aren’t familiar with Dallas will make them realize people are image of 1968 Olympic gold medalist Matthews continued by saying that the young, black generation,” he said. fed up.

The Dallas ambush made a big Tommie Smith making a closed-fist he doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt “They’re afraid.

When the police pull difference.

Now that they feel they could human rights salute. over white drivers, they don’t be targets, that could lead to a change.”

The march prompted feel like they’re in fear.

When When the marchers returned to The High Point Police Department will hold a discussion among neighbors they pull over young black Greater Mt. Calvary Ministries on East about both institutional community forum at City Hall, located at 211 drivers, their mind focuses Green Drive about an hour later, a few racism and personal responon stereotypes.

They think people spoke before the crowd dispersed S. Hamilton St. on Thursday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. sibility. of guns and drugs.” to take shelter from the rain.

David L. Matthews “to explain how High Point does policing in White said he holds out “It’s a beautiful thing,” Travis London watched the march from the a way that has helped the community avoid hope that police abuse told reporters. “I’m at a loss for words. front porch of his home on against black men will end in Me and my brother throw parties. This many of the issues that other departments East Green Drive. While the aftermath of the killing is a whole different thing.” he said he was happy to see face around the country.” of five Dallas police officers Parris London said he and brother young people getting enby a sniper because police were motivated to try to do something gaged in community affairs, while expressing a view that wouldn’t can now appreciate what it feels like to positive for the community after seeing he added, “A lot of stuff needs to start sound out of place coming from a police be the victims of violence.

At the time coverage of black men killed by police at home at the kitchen table, and then it officer.

“When an officer asks you to do of the march in High Point, the killing and racial tension on television.

This is can spread around.” something,” he said, “the best thing you of three more officers in Baton Rouge, the second march they’ve organized, the Jay White, a marcher who had can do is follow his lead.”

La. had not yet transpired. first being a response to the killing of

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Trayvon Martin in central Florida three years ago.

Deanna Daniel of Greensboro told the marchers that the killing of young black men is symptomatic of black people lacking economic power. She urged them to patronize black businesses and open accounts with Mechanics & Farmers Bank, a black-owned bank based in Durham that has branches in Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

“If you smoke, don’t smoke in front of children,” she added. “If you drink, don’t drink in front of your children.”

Travis London concluded the gathering by inviting High Point Assistant Police Chief Travis Stroud to speak.

“Thank you,” Stroud told the marchers. “We appreciate it. Thank you for a peaceful event.”

Reflecting on his meeting with Travis London before the march, Stroud said, “He and I talked about how we both grew up in High Point. We said we have a chance to have a peaceful event. Do we have issues to work on? Yes. This is just a step. High Point has been able to avoid every major event in this nation.

Let’s keep it up.”

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IS COMING

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OPINION EDITORIAL

North Carolina matters As the Republican National Convention gets underway in Cleveland, its slate of celebrity speakers and Trump family members making it look more like a D-list awards show than a forum for serious political discourse, we are reminded that in North Carolina, enough of the voters are into this kind of thing to make our state one of the few where the presidential election actually matters.

Republicans might as well not even show up on Election Day in California, which in presidential elections has been solidly blue since Ronald Reagan rode off into the sunset in 1988.

Same goes for Democrats in much of the South, where ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1968 the GOP has ruled in national elections.

These are the darkest days of the Southern Strategy, a civil war fought on social terms that turned Jim Crow Democrats into segregationist Republicans. We’ve moved from dog-whistles to white resentment to openly racist campaigning in the past 50 years.

North Carolina used to be part of that solid South, until Barack Obama won it in 2008, moving this oncered state into purple territory.

That Obama lost it in 2012 to Mitt Romney underscores the capricious nature of the electorate.

In other words: It could go either way.

Still, it’s depressing to think that Trump could win the state on Election Day. It would happen thanks to voters in rural areas and suburbs, bolstered by his tough xenophobia and choice of running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a social conservative who shores up Trump’s weak points on abortion and the demonization of LGBT Americans.

They would have to be unbothered by the man’s lack of experience or cohesive message, his wife’s blatant plagiarism on the first night of the convention.

Or maybe they just hate Hillary Clinton, whose approval ratings, like Trump’s, are the lowest her party has seen in a presidential candidate in decades.

The state’s 6.6 million voters can be parsed many ways: 2.6 million are registered Democrats and 2 million are Republican. Minus about 28,000 registered Libertarians, the final 2 million belongs to independents. More than half of NC voters, 3.5 million, are women. And almost half a million of them classify themselves racially as “other.”

But more than voter registration, elections tell our story. And the fact that Trump’s message, so laced with hate and bile, can find sympathetic ears in North Carolina shames us all.

CITIZEN GREEN

Official hypocrisy on police body camera video Gov. Pat McCrory surprised exactly no one last week when he signed into law HB 972, a bill sponsored

by Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford) establishing that footage from police body-worn and dashboard

by Jordan Green cameras is not a public record, while setting forth extremely limited circumstances for people who are recorded to review the footage.

The law leaves it up to the discretion of the head of the relevant law enforcement agency as to whether to disclose the footage, and then only to the person who was recorded, or their “personal representative.” If the person recorded is dead due to — just to throw out one hypothetical scenario — being killed by the police, then a parent, court-appointed guardian, spouse, adult child or attorney might be allowed to look at the footage.

To make the law even more restrictive, agencies may only make the footage available for viewing “at a time and location chosen by the custodial law enforcement agency,” but may not release the footage to the person recorded without a court order. If the agency chooses to not disclose the footage, the only available recourse is to file an appeal in superior court.

Again, there was zero chance that the governor would veto this onerous bill, but the insult and hypocrisy heaped on top of the deed has been breathtaking.

Flanked by law enforcement officers during the signing of HB 972 on July 11, McCrory created an Orwellian spectacle by uttering the word “transparency” twice in less than two minutes, along with the phrase “public trust,” while arguing the process would be “fair for everybody” and would protect the “rights” of law enforcement officers.

State law enforcement associations quickly praised the legislation, with the NC Troopers Association declaring that the law creates “improved transparency and trust” while the NC Police Benevolent Association lauded HB 972 for providing “transparency and accountability.”

The NC Sheriffs Association enthused in news release: “The new law also provides a simple procedure for viewing or obtaining a copy of a video in appropriate circumstances. If a difference of opinion exists about whether or not release of a particular video is appropriate, then the decision gets made by a ‘neutral and detached’ judicial official (i.e. judge) based on specific criteria clearly listed in the new law.”

The message to citizens: Not only are we shutting you out, but you should thank us for it. As for the sheriffs’ assurance that there’s a “simple procedure” to resolve a dispute over access, it’s frankly insulting to the many

people who live paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings to suggest that they just hire a lawyer to sue the police if they don’t like the way they’re being treated.

Notably, the law includes no mechanism for the news media to access police video, and let’s be clear that this action by our state government is taking place in a national context when video recorded by citizens has revealed time after time that police in places like North Charleston, Cincinnati and Baton Rouge have wantonly and unnecessarily killed black men. There’s a reason that trust in the police continues to erode.

Not that anybody should be surprised at the state’s efforts to impede the news media. Officials from both major political parties have made their disdain for the profession abundantly clear. We get the message.

It must be said however that journalistic access is not about a self-interested pursuit in sensational scoops, commanding eyeballs and generating clicks. The ability of professional news organizations to review primary-source documents — such as video footage of critical incidents involving police and civilians — allows a baseline of shared facts incorporating the often-conflicting assertions of involved parties to emerge. Without that, it’s very difficult to have an honest dialogue about the function of government and performance of public servants. Those facts — if subjected to daylight — will often show that police officers are performing their duties honorably, but if journalists are prevented from unearthing the facts, it becomes difficult for the news media and the police to maintain public trust.

By shutting out the news media, along with clergy, activists and advocacy organizations, the state is also effectively isolating individuals who feel they have been mistreated by the police, ensuring that should they even be able to muster the resources to uphold their rights, they will be left in the position of making charges that cannot be corroborated by third parties and will easily be dismissed as unfounded.

Here’s a personal plea to Gov. McCrory, and to our state lawmakers, mayors, city council members and law enforcement officials: Please stop using the words “transparency,” “accountability” and “public trust” when discussing police dash and body cameras. If law enforcement agencies want this technology, then private police foundations should pay for it, as they did in Greensboro.

Federal grants for a tool that does little more than create the illusion of accountability is the very definition of wasteful government spending.

This law is an affront to the principal of self-governance. It doesn’t do anything to maintain public trust.

Far from it — our trust was lost the moment Gov. McCrory’s ink was put to the bill.

Economic democracy in the Triad

Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

Eric Ginsburg is the associate editor of Triad City Beat.

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this country — but that your legitimate grievances will be tied up with the ways that you’re wrong. We do need to find a way to come together, as you sometimes say, to listen across our differences, but we don’t do that by ignoring them, by erasing history, by starting fresh without first taking out the trash.

Maybe some day we’ll sit down and talk. I’d like that. But until then, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you in the hopes that if we do discuss our whiteness, that you’ll come to the table ready to listen as well.

Maybe you, like me, don’t live with a constant and visceral fear of the police.

Maybe you, like me, don’t worry that your name will some day appear next to Freddie Gray, to Sandra Bland, to Alton Sterling.

Maybe you, like me, don’t have to sell bootleg CDs, weed or loose cigarettes to get by. Maybe you, like me, don’t worry that a police detective or a jury is more likely to assume your guilt because of your race, heritage or religion, like Jorge Cornell or Adnan Syed. Maybe you, like me, don’t fear that a language barrier could lead to your untimely death, like Chieu Di Thi Vo, or that police won’t understand your health issues and mistakenly determine you’re armed, like James Paschal Jr. These scenarios are not my personal reality, either. But that doesn’t make them any less real. If you, like me, cannot connect to any of these scenarios, don’t assume that your reality somehow negates them. I beg you to listen to people who live these realities. Do not turn away, as I initially did. Be affected. Listening alone is not enough, but it is a start.

That’s why I want to listen to you. And why I hope you’ll listen to me when I ask you questions like, “Have you ever had a black supervisor at work?” It struck me recently when a black friend in a managerial role told me his white subordinates never had that, that I rarely have either.

Maybe you have. You and I are not the same, after all.

But I imagine we have more in common than we both might expect.

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I have a lot of questions for white people.

I specifically want to talk to those of you who somehow

by Eric Ginsburg still deny that your whiteness provides you privilege, who don’t believe that race plays a role in every element of our lives from interpersonal interactions to bank loans to police shootings, who are sick of talking about race and who wish that people like me would shut up about it.

I genuinely want to understand where you’re coming from.

I imagine, from talking to some people who share views similar to yours, that it could be because you see your personal experience as contradicting this narrative, because you don’t feel you’ve been afforded any particular edge in life and that our society has left you behind.

I think that’s why some of you will vote for Donald Trump, assuming that in him the working- or middle-class community you’re a part of will finally have a voice.

And some of you will deeply resent my categorization, resisting my attempt to generalize about you based on the color of your skin rather than other aspects of your identity, things that you hold closer to your sense of self.

I could keep guessing, keep making inferences based on past conversations or things I’ve felt at various times. I have a feeling that might not take us very far. Instead I’d like to actually talk to you about it. Like, in person. Maybe over a beer.

I’ll admit that my intentions aren’t entirely pure, that in addition to truly wanting to understand where you’re coming from and to hear your answers to my many questions, I have an underlying agenda. There won’t be an invitation to some sort of Church of Social Justice afterwards, but I won’t insult your intelligence and pretend that part of my goal isn’t to encourage you to think about your whiteness differently.

Because I’m worried that in some ways you’re right — you don’t feel particularly privileged, I’m guessing, and are right to point to a very small ruling class in

News

nomic democracy practices can adapt to local realities, such as investor type and geographic location.

With the Renaissance Community Coop set to open in October, Greensboro residents have the opportunity to observe solution-focused economic democracy in action. Because Greensboro’s hunger and food desert problems constitute a city-wide problem, the co-op connects city and private funders with community stakeholders to form a coalition that embodies a hybrid form of economic democracy.

Winston-Salem’s Triad Food Buying Co-op inhabits another portion of the economic democracy spectrum — one that de-emphasizes profit and encourages volunteer cooperation. The Winston-Salem Co-op “is a member-owned and operated” enterprise that presents “an alternative to commercial profit-oriented” companies, according to its website. In High Point, the Budding Artichoke boasts a owner-farmer collaboration and community classes, while its structure remains that of a for-profit company.

These food-retailer examples illustrate only some of the ways economic democracy could take shape within Triad businesses.

What about a worker-owned dive bar?

Or a barbershop that has an organizational board comprised of its haircut clients?

Or a clothing shop where trendy kids can vote on the styles they want sourced?

The possibilities are as infinite as Triad business owners’ imaginations, and as concrete as the customers they love to serve.

Why not give economic democracy a try?

Up Front

We’re used to thinking about and celebrating democracy in the political realm, but what if we

by Jesse Morales encouraged it as principle in our economy as well?

Economic democracy refers to grassroots, customer participation in the decision-making of a local business. For example, under an economic democracy paradigm, consumers can (usually for a small fee) become stakeholder members in a company’s governance. Such an exchange benefits customers and business owners reciprocally — with owners offering constituent members a voice in policy decisions while patrons then become more deeply invested into the company’s longevity.

Using economic democracy as a method of operating a business stands out from the usual capitalist practice of decisions and policy emanating from a top-level board or CEO. However, economic democracy does not aim to dismantle capitalism itself. To the contrary: In theory, and often in practice, drawing on existing patrons for governmental support yields greater profits for both owners and members.

Another plus of building an economic democracy ethos into a business is that the proprietors can decide what level of customer involvement suits their needs.

Independent grocery stores here in the Triad represent some of the ways eco-

Questions for white people

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Cover Story

A true-life Pokémon Go adventure by a grown man

by Brian Clarey

I spot the wild doduo outside Reanimator in the early afternoon, its twin fuzzy heads bobbing stupidly on the screen of my phone.

I had built up a small stable of them over the last couple days, but had amassed nowhere near enough candy to evolve one of them into… I don’t know… that thing doduos evolve into when you feed them 50 candies with the three heads. Dodrio. Yeah, that.

I’ve only known you can use these candies to evolve your Pokémon into better, tougher Pokémon for about a day — my 13-year-old son showed me a couple nights before, along with a few other tips gleaned from his years collecting the cards, watching the

16

shows, playing the games and soaking up whatever other crap Nintendo dished out in what I always thought of as the most annoying anime franchise ever.

But now, god help me, I’m hooked.

It’s hot out. Super hot, and my hands are slick with sweat, the screen of my cell phone gummy with the midday humidity. I launch pokéballs at the doduo, one after the other: wide right, wide left, too short, too long. When I do land one, the doduo wriggles out of the ball’s grasp like a dog taking off a sweater. After maybe 10 shots, I hit my strike, but before the pokéball shivers to acknowl-

there lately? — and sucking up bandwidth once devoted to Netflix and porn.

Everyone has noticed more people on the streets, wandering through neighborhoods and discovering landmarks that have been there for decades. They’re talking to each other — sure, they’re talking about ridiculous cartoon creatures and imaginary locations, but they’re talking to each other! Even my 16-year-old son, who spends so much time on the couch there’s a sweat imprint of his body on it, wandered out into the yard, rubbed his eyes against the sunlight and walked to the end of the block to see if there were any water Pokémon in the creek.

It’s the most exercise I’ve seen him get all summer.

The Summer of Pokémon could not have come at a better time, if you ask me.

Right now the real world is a huge drag. Concurrent with the game’s release have been two police shootings of young black men; two incidents of shootings against law enforcement, a terrorist attack in the south of France and a failed military coup in Turkey.

And in case anyone hasn’t noticed, there are two people running for president of the United States that everyone seems to hate.

Facebook and Twitter have devolved into political cesspools; everybody’s already finished the new episodes of “Orange is the New Black”; and football season doesn’t start for another seven weeks, unless you count pre-season, which I don’t.

And then there’s me.

Both personally and professionally, my life is a juggling act of stress and responsibilities; sometimes I get

so deep into the grind I forget that anything else exists.

I have been using video games as a means of escape since I got my first home-version of Pong when I was 8 years old. By the time Space Invaders came out, I was dumping quarters into the machines at arcades, bowling alleys and pizza joints. Around 1979, two years after it launched, the Atari 2600 began heavily saturating the market. My parents had the same attitude about video games as their parents had about rock and roll: a trashy trend that would surely rot your brain, and they promised that I would never own one.

True story: I won my Atari 2600 in 1982 in a box of Cap’n Crunch. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and a total burn on my parents.

I’ve played them all: Intellivision, ColecoVision, Vectrex, Sega. I’m pretty sure I can still trap the koopa troopa shell and get a ton of free guys in Super Mario Brothers, and I am unbeatable at Tecmo Bowl.

I still try to log some hours on the PS4 when my boys aren’t using it — I like virtual pinball and superhero games — and I play video games on my phone, sometimes to the point of compulsion. That’s why I had to get rid of Candy Crush. But I’ve always got like 10 Words With Friends going, and I am a champion triple towers player.

My lifestyle and history make me part of a prime segment for Pokémon Go — even though I know next to nothing about the franchise, its characters or its lore. I was 25 when Pokémon came out in 1995, and can say for sure that it did not raise a blip on my radar. But anyone born between 1985 and 2005 is steeped in the canon — Pikachu and whatnot — and they’re out there now on the streets, playing it. So are their mothers and fathers, their roommates and boyfriends and girlfriends.

It’s tapping into sentiment for these characters, this Pokémon universe, yes. But what’s being mined is some-

triad-city-beat.com

edge my capture, my game freezes up. The contest plays out as an unseen algorithm — I’ll have to restart and check my pokédeck to see if I got him.

And that’s exactly what I do.

Looks like I missed him — a huge waste of pokéballs, so I load up at the pokéstop by the bike shop, commemorating a piece of art that is no longer there, and head west looking for trouble.

I loop behind Krankies on Fourth Street and pick up a weedle on the first toss, thank you very much, and a pokéstop at the downtown Winston-Salem Reynolds Building, now the Cardinal Kimpton Hotel, is good for three pokéballs and an ekans lurking near the corner.

Resource-rich Fourth Street replenishes my virtual backpack with balls and potions, and while I’m walking, a rare omanyte, which is like a snail or a hermit crab or something, hatches from an egg I’ve been incubating for 10 kilometers.

I add another zubat to my deck, as well as a squirtle, a male nidoran and — squee! — an abra, which looks like a sleeping yellow kangaroo. I’ll have to ask my son about it when I get home, before we go on the evening hunt.

Yeah, okay, fine. I admit it: I’m one of those. I downloaded Pokémon Go just a few days after it broke on July 7. I love playing games on my phone, and I figured my kids would be into it. I had a small notion, that day, that something like a phenomenon was going on. The app had already hit 15 million downloads, though I had yet to understand what that meant.

I still can’t quite comprehend it.

Just one week in, Pokémon Go is the fastest-growing mobile game in history and expanding rapidly — 5 percent of Android users are on it every day, and more have downloaded it than Tinder, making it, by marketing standards, more popular than sex. It’s eating into Facebook’s user pool — Have you noticed things have been quiet

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Cover Story

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thing much more.

So, channeling my inner 13-year-old, I downloaded the game and named my hunter HoofHearted13, which is funnier if you say it fast.

Every night last week I came home from work, grabbed my 13-year-old and went Pokémon hunting. Sometimes his brother or his sister came with us, sometimes my wife. On Monday and Tuesday we spun to the Pokémon stops at Barber Park in Greensboro along with a small family and a trio of college kids. On Wednesday we stopped through downtown and hit all the spots at Center City Park and along that stretch of Elm Street with dozens of other nerds. A driver headed south on Elm leaned out his window to shout that a rare kabuto had been spotted around the corner. Three separate groups of hunters peeled out of the park to chase it down.

In that time I became initiated into the fold.

The main object of Pokémon Go is to catch Pokémon — cute little monsters that exist as snippets of code on a massive server that randomly “show up” in various locations across the country, seen only through the user’s phone while the app is running. It’s basically like walking around in Google Maps. When a Pokémon gets close while the app is running, the on-screen display reverts to a target game: You pitch the pokéball with your thumb or finger and try to hit the little bugger with the ball, which traps the Pokémon, secures its stardust and candy, and registers it in the pokédeck.

Seriously: Have you not done this yet?

You can use the candy and stardust to power up the Pokémon, or hoard a bunch of the same type of candy and evolve the Pokémon into something else, another species more powerful than the last. The purpose of this process is to train up your guys to fight in gyms, which are strategically placed in public spaces. Also scattered everywhere — churches, libraries, public art installations, stores, memorial plaques, random street corners — are pokéstops, which spin out goodies like extra pokéballs, potions and crystals that restore power, incense that attracts the wild creatures, Pokémon eggs.

This facet of the game is what’s been bringing people out into the streets to discover hidden monuments and architectural features they had never noticed before

in their own neighborhoods. It’s what’s been driving business at places like Bull’s Tavern in Winston-Salem and Eclectic by Nature in Greensboro. It’s done more to promote our center cities than any downtown organization in the Triad could have done so quickly and broadly.

Just a week in, and Pokémon hunting groups and bar crawls fill Facebook event pages.

Parties converge around pokéstops, and people set off modules that attract wild Pokémon in the way people used to light joints. Bars and restaurants are running Pokémon-themed specials and there haven’t been this many people using our public parks all summer. A downtown Pokémon Center has opened in the Empire Room, offering refreshments for hunters as they traipse through the city streets. Downtown Winston-Salem, with even more pokéstops, has been crawling with hunters every night since the game came out.

This is a genuine phenomenon along the lines of the hula hoop — except it took the hula hoop four months to hit 25 million units back in the 1950s. More than 15 million iPhone users had downloaded the game in the first six days, and more than 10 million downloads on Android devices as of Sunday.

That’s more than the population of Australia.

On Thursday night at Geeksboro, the big room hums with Pokémon players, staring into phones at the tables, on the couches. They’re gathered out front, mingling with the customers waiting in line at Hops Burger Bar and walking down to the gym at Acme Comics, one of the toughest in town. Someone’s set off a lure module at the Geeksboro pokéstop, and the little buggers are everywhere.

My 13-year-old engages with the counterman, perhaps in his twenties, about the cards they’ve collected over the years, the monsters they hope to catch, how knowledge of the Pokémon universe translates to success in the Pokémon Go game.

My son, who regards me with something like pity due to my relative inexperience with the game, says, “You see, I speak the language.”

On Thursday morning, I begin my day around sunrise by starting the coffee pot and taking in the first cigarette of the day. Then, while everyone else is still sleeping, I drive my car slowly around my neighborhood, hitting every pokéstop in the vicinity to re-up my supply of pokéballs. I had run out the night before while chasing Pokémon in the yard, and had missed out on capturing a pikachu — sort of the

By Sunday night, I’m a Level 12, with 40 of the 138 Pokémon logged into my pokédeck. But I still have not landed a win at a gym. At the office and out of pokéballs once again, I’m compelled to get in my car and drive slowly up Elm Street, pausing slightly at each pokéstop to reap its bounty. (Note: Never do this).

I’ve suffered through two crashes at this point — the Great Saturday Afternoon Pokémon Crash, which took out servers for the

bulk of the day, and for which a hacker group named PoodleCorp took credit, and another drop that lasted a few hours this very afternoon, which happened when Canada came online.

Plus, my sons have been gaining on me — they’ve both cleared Level 5 and are starting to master their moves in the gyms. And I know if I don’t learn to fight soon, I will be a laughingstock in my own home.

I’m loaded for bear, so I swing past the Green Hill Cemetery off Smith Street, where an amazing trove of pokéspots hooks me up and move north back to Geeksboro, where someone’s set off a lure module. I get a coffee and pick off a few creatures, including a polliwog, which is like a beaver or something with a weird spiral on its breast.

And then I gird myself and head for the Acme Comics gym, by now in control of the yellow team — Team Instinct, I now understand — with a low-level raticate defending it. The game puts together six of my best Pokémon, and when the fight begins the first two, a pinsir and a fully evolved pidgeot, barely make a dent. It is my third fighter, the vaporeon, that racks my first victory by, I think,

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poster boy for the franchise, a round, yellow rodent-looking thing.

My son tells me that a pikachu is nothing special, no great powers or anything, but the blown opportunity haunts me.

You shouldn’t Pokémon while driving — it’s even more distracting than texting or Facebooking — but dammit, I need those balls.

How the hell can I catch Pokémon without them?

By now, the news cycle is filled with warning stories about the dangers of the game: cell-phone robberies at pokéstops, hunters hit by moving cars while transfixed on their screens, nasty incidents of trespassing. In California, two men fell off a cliff while chasing Pokémon — the LA Times report neglected to mention what type of monster they were chasing. Thus far, four groups of Pokémon hunters have come across dead bodies. The internet is already full of articles from American Christians denouncing the game for its occultish tendencies. Even more pages detail the security risk the game poses by exposing your data — virtually all of which is already available to every other app on your phone.

I’ve noticed the app sucks data and eats power. But my biggest problem is that I keep running out of balls. So I get in the habit of running this early-morning recon that culminates with a drive through the entirety of the Revolution Mills campus, where a handful of pokéstops and a gym at the water tower await.

More nuances of the game reveal themselves over the days. I’ve been evolving and powering up a small crew of fighters: a pinsor that I caught on the first day and renamed Mr. Pinchy, a pidgeot that I raised from a small pidgey and equipped with a hurricane attack, a kick-ass vaporeon that I sold off a bunch of evees in order to evolve.

Thus far I’ve been unable to win a battle — I’ve been stopping at gyms here and there, sacrificing Mr. Pinchy and a powerful raticate I’ve trained up in efforts to learn how to fight. There are no practice screens, no real instructions on how it’s done. The only way to learn is to take a beating.

After ascending to Level 5, each Pokémoner must choose a faction — without getting into too much detail, they are red, blue and yellow. I went with blue. No real reason.

But the factions take an important role in the game: Teams can capture gyms and hold them by fending off challengers.

And battling is the most lucrative endeavor in the game: Players can earn golden coins by holding down a gym, for buying more pokéballs, incense, modules and other useful items. The only other way to get gold coins is to buy them, about a penny apiece and 1,200 of them for about $10. In this way, though the game is absolutely free to play, Pokémon took in more than $14 million in its first week. In the first couple days, parent company Nintendo saw its stock rise 25 percent, an increase in market value of $7.5 billion.

The real-world merchandise hasn’t even kicked in yet, but expect to see a rash of Pokémon T-shirts and snapbacks all over the place by the end of the summer.

shooting water out of its head — it’s hard to tell, it all happens so fast.

The whole thing takes less than a minute, but it’s enough to give me my first battle victory, even if I don’t quite understand how I did it, and the experience points push me over the threshold to Level 13, respectable by any standards.

I put the phone down then, because I need to get home to lord it over my kids.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE Mole, chilaquiles and a phantom Vietnamese restaurant

by Eric Ginsburg

D

espite thoroughly enjoying the food at El Mariachi Mexican restaurant on my first visit, I didn’t return until years later — four, if memory serves — and only then by accident.

My friend Bekah and I showed up at the shopping complex way down Gate City Boulevard (formerly High Point Road) that is home to the $1.50 theater (formerly the $1 theater) looking for pho. Another friend had recommended a Greensboro coffeeshop and restaurant called Pho Nui, a place where old men go to drink and hang out, she said, but somewhere owned by her friend’s family and home to some excellent Vietnamese food.

The sign out front said “Ca Pho Hai Au” — Google Translate recognizes this as Romanian, so no help there — but an open sign glowed in the window while others proclaimed coffee and karaoke. Tinted out front windows concerned me, and when we walked in a group of men, maybe a few decades our senior, hovered around one of the tables inside, drinking and appearing to be playing a game. One asked if he could help us, and then confirmed my fear; no food served here.

The mole sauce is excellent a couple doors down at El Mariachi, I offered to Bekah, or if you still want Vietnamese, I <3 Pho is just a little farther down the road.

I knew before I finished the sentence that my friend, a Chapel Hill native who left part of her heart in Mexico, would choose the former.

El Mariachi looks like your standard American MexERIC GINSBURG Few things are as satisfying as an order of chilaquiles, a delicious dish often overlooked by ican restaurant, complete with beer specials on the gringos like me. wall, wooden booths and colorful decorations. But it would be a lie to call the food average or unremarkthat you’d come across in a restaurant in Mexico, at me like I’d trespassed on his lawn. The summer able, especially after my second visit on Monday when instead finding meatier and cheesier options often evening possessed an apocalyptic sort of mood, a I dined on some pretty spectacular chilaquiles. Indeed, created or embellished anywhere from Texas to Caliclosed storefront flashing “Sale” and a few moviegoers the reason for my absence has more to do with quality fornia (all a region that used to be Mexico, mind you, lingering near the distant theater’s edifice.

Mexican choices close to home, including the caldo de but that’s a history lesson for another day). That’s why Better to come back to El Mariachi on a Friday night, pollo at San Luis and a burrito I won’t shut up about at Bekah, despite her affection for the country she might I thought to myself, when the menu advertises a live Villa del Mar. rather be living in, didn’t bother, ordering a chimichanmariachi band from 7 to 10 p.m. and the somewhat El Mariachi is an important reminder that we all ga; think Tex Mex-style fried burrito. desolate strip is a little more inviting. And I should be need to branch out more.

We both loved our entrees, eating more than we sure not to wait nearly as long, too.

I’m a sucker for Mexican food with shredded chicken, should, and in my case downing two Pacifico beers avocado and queso fresco, without even feeling it. but part of the particular It wasn’t until I stood Pick of the Week appeal of the traditional Visit El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill to leave that I noticed the dish — as opposed to AmerBetter bark than bite bar. Set apart from the at 4623 W. Gate City Blvd. (GSO) or ican-born counterparts — is Dogs for a Cause Patio Party @ Pinxtos Pour House main dining room along the at elmariachimexicanbargrill.com. the runny fried egg and the (W-S), Saturday, 2 p.m. restaurant’s right side, the gently fried tortilla base. This Classic summer treats for dogs (gourmet nibbles dark room seemed almost is what breakfast dreams are only) and their humans (hot dogs, natch) are availforeboding with just a couple made of, superior even to my beloved Mexican eggs able at this “pawty” — bring your ani-pal, of course. patrons at 9 p.m. on a Monday evening. meal at Smith Street Diner. Breakfast is served all day This event benefits the Forsyth Humane Society’s That feeling didn’t subside as I stepped back into the at El Mariachi, though I found the chilaquiles in a difPet Pantry, which aims to “provide dog and cat ghostly parking lot, the kind of place you’d bring a kid ferent section of the restaurant’s extensive menu and food assistance” in order to “keep animals in their to teach them how to drive. An evening that started argue adamantly that they shouldn’t be restricted to a homes and not… at a shelter.” A fine dinner it’s not, with a false start into a karaoke/coffee non-restaurant certain time of day. but the cause is hella warm and fuzzy. The event’s ended with a leering man, chomping on a cigar and It can be challenging to find the sort of food here Facebook page has the lowdown. slowly drifting through the lot in his minivan, staring

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The Beer Growler

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

appreciated. A not uncommon focus on North CarGeorgia-based chain, which is an uncommon arrangeolina brews here led me to trying two products from ment for bottle shops like it around here. All of that is Ass Clown in Cornelius including a raspberry jalapeño to say, the odds were already arranged against it in my stout, a Belgian golden from Wicked Weed in Asheville, head. a blackberry sour from Legion in Charlotte as well as a But the Beer Growler is something special. bourbon-barrel aged cider from California and a pale It might sound inconsequential, but I deeply apnamed after Liz Lemon from Oregon. preciate that the bazillion beers on draft at the Beer Consider me satisfied.

Growler in Winston-Salem are written in big print on the wall behind the bar, color-coded by type of beer The Beer Growler feels more like an afternoon bar than most other businesses like it, which trend more and include prices. I’m okay paying a little more for a beer, on occasion, but only on purpose. Some other towards retail first; think Stella Brew or Beer Co. But it’s more of a place to come and bottle shops do display their draft selection boldly on the wall — I’m learn about beer — there are binders with descriptions of beer inside thinking of Gate City Growlers Visit the Beer Growler at on tables, almost like a collection especially — and though some will 3424 Robinhood Road (W-S) of sports cards — something that write out the brewery, beer name or find it on Facebook. and style, I’ve yet to see clearly can certainly happen in bars but marked color coding elsewhere. which is more encouraged and accessible at shops like this, Stella The Beer Growler offers a key or Juggheads. explaining the colors, as well as indicators for rare and The variations may seem subtle, or a little insider premium beer; that way, instead of playing 20 Quesbaseball if you don’t care too much about beer. But the tions with the bartender, I can compile a flight with ease and sample the pricier beers for free. effort put towards accessibility at the Beer Growler shouldn’t go unnoticed, making it easier for newbs and Flights at the Beer Growler come with five pours instead of four as well as a small snack of your nerds alike to find what they’re looking for. choice such as oyster crackers to accompany it. With somewhere near 50 beers on tap — and some pretty excellent soda, I should mention — the flight depth is

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Honestly, I didn’t expect much from the bottle shop and tap room in a small shopping strip off Winston-Salem’s Robinhood Road.

Retail beer shops exploded just over a year ago here like

by Eric Ginsburg the sudden burst of torrential rain that struck the Triad last weekend, suddenly flooding once empty streets with a litany of places to snag craft beer to go. Each is unique, of course, with variations in exact approach, but nearly all offer a selection of beers on tap and others by the bottle or six pack. They’re the sort of spots that often close on the early side, making them ideal for the after-work crowd seeking a pint or a grab-andgo.

I’ve drank in a half dozen or more around here at this point, and while I don’t exactly dislike any, the appeal is generally proximity and convenience, given that most offer sizable selections. So when I rolled up at the Beer Growler for the first time last week, I wasn’t exactly bubbling with anticipation. I’d say I felt something closer to the sensation of aimlessly flipping channels and halfheartedly landing on an old movie I’ve seen 10 times.

Plus, the Beer Growler is a franchise, part of a small

ERIC GINSBURG

Culture

The dozens of taps at the Beer Growler in Winston-Salem draw a considerable post-work crowd.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Latin jazz players come through with dance music for the people

by Jordan Green

D

uring a hot summer of ugly racial tensions, overheated campaign rhetoric about a wall to keep out Mexicans, escalating violence between police and black men, heated debate over the Second Amendment and mass violence from Orlando to Nice, it can seem like a miracle when people from different backgrounds come together in public spaces to have a good time.

At risk of sounding trite, that’s the power of music.

The music of West End Mambo, led by Nicaraguan keyboardist and arranger Cesar Oviedo, is stylistically grounded in the classic salsa sound established in New York City in the 1970s by artists like Ray Barretto and the Fania All-Stars. The band effortlessly reaches back to mambo, Latin jazz and the core tradition of Afro-Cuban music while extending a pan-Latino umbrella to include merengue music from the Dominican Republic, along with variants from Venezuela and Colombia.

Established in 1999 — the name comes from Winston-Salem’s West End Boulevard, where the band rehearsed at a founding member’s house — West End Mambo evolved from a Latin jazz band to an ensemble firmly committed to dance music by 2014, Cesar Oviedo said.

One didn’t need to know the distinctions between a cha cha cha and guaguanco or cumbia and timba to get caught up in West End Mambo’s life-affirming energy and exuberance during the band’s free concert as JORDAN GREEN William Herring (left) showed off some fancy stepping during West End Mambo’s set on Liberty Street in part of Downtown Winston-Salem PartnerWinston-Salem on July 16. ship’s Summer on Liberty concert series on July 16. Watching the dancers — an Afripaid homage to a time a half-century past when Liberalso including trumpeters Steve Sutton and Christian can-American woman with braids wound into a bun ty Street pulsated with R&B and soul music — a fitting McIvor — would join the bandleader/keyboardist in a nimbly trying out new moves, a young Latinx couple prelude to the multicultural tableau of the present. closing finale: Ba-da da-da da-da-dat! executing complicated salsa dance steps, an interraA white couple visiting from Pinehurst, who had The salsa standards and dance numbers that form cial group of millennials who looked like they might accidentally stumbled upon the music, marveled at the West End Mambo’s repertoire might be a bit below the be Americorps volunteers spinning each other around scene as the band performed “Quimbara,” a song popmusicians’ paygrade, but none of them were complainbelow the stage, a grizzled white man performing a ularized by the late queen of salsa music, Celia Cruz. ing. manic step routine in loafers, and an elderly black man “The dancers here are so passionate,” the woman “I love playing jazz and fusion,” Cesar Oviedo said doing the chicken strut — was half the fun. A woman said, adding that they had seen a lot of Latin music in in a wheelchair swung her partner’s hand, and another places like Atlanta, but never anything as good as this.

Pick of the Week who was missing a forearm thrust her hips from side A typical number began with a percussive intro — a to side. Sometimes crossing lines of race and age as the Earthsong gathering syncopated and electrifying interplay between Atiba dancers changed partners, the expressions of surprise Ras Attitude @ the Ultra Club (GSO), Friday, 10 p.m.

Rorie on congas and Ramone Ortiz on timbales — next and joy on their faces told stories of discovery, pleasure Go sing and sway at this multi-band performance Cesar Oviedo coming in on piano with a jazzy expoand challenge. in honor of Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael’s birthsition, and then the band taking off in a simmering A steady downpour that delayed the concert a half day… right after Googling that name. Translation: groove with bass player Tim Singh hewing closely to hour past its designated 7 p.m. start time broke the Ras Attitude joins fellow rasta musicians Cayenne the beat and vocalist Oscar Oviedo (no relation) lining heat, and the golden-hour light suffused the street King, Basha Bingie and more in “celebrating the out lyrics with a smile on his face and exhorting the with pastel warmth. A mural depicting a lively urban 124th earthstrong of Emperor Haile Selassie I” the crowd. Just before the end of the song Cesar Oviedo scene with ’60s vintage American cars that covered a Greensboro way. If you’re down for the bangarang, would rise from his bench and signal across the stage derelict building to the left of the mobile soundstage the event’s Facebook page has the hookup. to saxophonist Steve Blake, and the horn section —

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Republic!... Mexico!… Winston-Salem!...

Uruguay!... Chile!”

The band closed with a cover of the Ray Charles’ classic “Hit the Road, Jack” that segued into “Moliendo Café,” a Latin song of roughly the same early ’60s vintage as Charles’ North American R&B hit that Cesar Oviedo arranged for West End Mambo in the Cuban guaguanco style.

If there was one sour note, it was when a drunk man in a battered straw

hat climbed onto the stage as Cesar Oviedo was introducing the musicians, leading the bandleader to expedite the ritual and gesture furiously for the interloper to get lost.

“It’s always great to be here,” Cesar Oviedo said. “You’re always fun. We have fun. And we get paid. How about that?”

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The band shifted into a low-key mode for a pastoral rendition of the Cuban folk song “Guantanamera.”

The horn players grabbed their music sheets as the band picked up the tempo for “La Faldita,” introduced by Oscar Oviedo as “merengue for Dominicans.”

Before the last number, Oscar Oviedo shouted out homelands, prompting loud cheers and sometimes laughter in response to each.

“Puerto Rico!... Cuba!... Dominican

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during the break. “Here it is just joy, energy and yeah! It’s like ‘The Electric Slide.’”

When the band returned to the stage for a second set, they obliged fans of virtually every style of Latin music.

“Para Colombianos,” cried Oscar Oviedo, a native Colombian. “Cu-cucumbia!” As Cesar Oviedo took a lyrical piano break, the dancers laughed as they recognized themselves on Jumbotron set up on Sixth Street.

JORDAN GREEN

Culture

Bandleader/keyboardist Cesar Oviedo (left) and vocalist Oscar Oviedo are not related.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Where drag is a game, and also a sport

by Naari Honor

T

hree of them stand in front of a mirror applying contouring makeup to their faces. Although they are performing the same task, there are significant difference about each of them that make them stand out from one another.

The first person goes by the name of Rose Jackson.

Jackson is quick to say that while born a man, deep within it is no secret that she is a woman trapped within the wrong body.

There is a grace to her movement that naturally flows as easily as the makeup that glides along her face. What masculine traits she ever possessed have long left her.

Standing next to her is Brian Coleman. He does not make the same claim as Jackson and often refers to himself as a man in a dress. He lives his life as a man and would be hard to recognize on the street as Fuschia Rage, the female character he is transforms himself into for the evening.

Joining them is Crystal Frost. Frost started to perform drag later in life than many of her peers. She began drag in her thirties while most people start in their teens or early twenties. While she was teased by people who started earlier, Frost began to take a different perspective and give the crowd what they asked for.

“At first I got my feelings hurt a lot because people made allusions to my age and called me the ‘glamor granny’ and things of that nature,” Frost says. “It really started to hurt my feelings. And then I thought, ‘You want a glamor granny? I will give you a glamor granny.’

I took possession over it.”

Coleman says he was heavily involved in pageantry and has several crowns to show for it. However, one day he woke up and decided not to compete. He had come to the point where he only wanted to do drag for the fun of it.

“Don’t get me wrong: I cherish the moments that I spent in pageants,” Coleman says. “The first pageant I ever did, I won. Every now and then I take out that crown and look at it.”

Coleman puts his hands over his heart and deeply exhales.

“Fuschia honey, she was a hey-day, storm getter, back in the day honey and then she just disappeared,” Jackson says. “But all of a sudden one day she decides I’m going to jump back in.”

“All of a sudden …” Jackson begins.

“You got Madonna and Cher,” Frost yells and the trio fall out laughing These three are a part of a larger cast of characters that are behind Drag Queen Bingo, a quarterly event conceived by the Guilford Green Foundation nearly 15 years ago and held at the Elm Street Center in downtown Greensboro. The production has successfully raised thousands of dollars to promote diversity and inclusion in the Guilford County’s LGBTQ commu-

Bingo is a game. Drag is a sport.

nity. The proceeds that are raised through the event go towards grants that are issued to qualified LGBT organizations that share in the foundation’s mission of promoting diversity and inclusion of LGBTQ people in Guilford County.

Every Bingo has its own theme and the music sung by the ladies is based on that theme.

“Please God, no ballads!” Bill Falcon, the emcee and general manager of the Elm Street Center, pleads.

The theme for the July 15 event was a play on the ’80s professional wrestling television show, “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling” (GLOW), entitled the Gorgeous Ladies of Bingo (GLOB).

“The girls aren’t too happy about being called GLOBs,” Falcon said. “But hey if it works, it works.”

Although drag bingo is not a competition, those within the drag community find themselves navigating the scene as if every day was a competition.

“Well drag is a sport, girl,” Jackson says. “Get into it.”

Coleman lets out a hysterical laugh in agreement.

“It is constantly a competition because what you do is take men who have that male ego already and then you give them that diva sass by trying to outdo each other, as females do, and you pour that all into one person,” Coleman says. “So you have female attitude.”

“Oh God, it gets terrible, honey”, Jackson chimes in.

It’s not long before the host for the evening, who

NAARI HONOR

goes by Big Shirli Stevenz, arrives at the Elm Street Center and joins everyone else in their dressing room.

Although Stevenz gets to the venue in full makeup there is still much to be done in her eyes. Stevenz questions why no one is rehearsing the opening song for the night’s show. Not long after posing the question, she has the whole room lip-syncing and dancing in preparation for the opening number.

Pick of the Week High Point famous Look and Learn: A Lecture on the Art and Architecture of Louis Voorhees @ Theater Art Galleries (HP), Thursday, 10 a.m.

Turns out designing the Guilford County Courthouse in High Point (among other projects) can transform a Northern boy into a local celebrity — for 75 solid years. The High Point Historical Society reaffirms Voorhees’ it-boy status with this retrospective on his body of work. One heads-up: Watch for how the event organizers narrate the architect’s most problematic project (if they do). In 1940, Voorhees designed two infamous sets of federally-subsidized housing: a “Colonial” type neighborhood for white folks, and an “English worker housing” style for black folks. Ouch. Check out the Facebook event if you’re curious how the gallery tells that story.

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ary’s Gourmet Diner

(336) 723-7239

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“I guess I can attribute it to growing up in an era when people were not as accepting as they are now and I didn’t have a lot of friends. So I escaped in to the world of old movies. It was my way of emulating the stars such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and others that I saw.”

Every one of them possesses their own distinct personality. Even the way in which they prefer to be referred to is fluid. However, the one constant they share is their passion for entertaining and love for one another.

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Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan is also executive director of Guilford Green Foundation.

NAARI HONOR

Culture

NAARI HONOR

Cover Story

Nicole de’ Lancret gives the crowd an unexpected treat.

Fun & Games Games All She Wrote

for Misti Laine Stevenz, the Ball Verifying Diva (BVD) of the show. She takes her time getting ready as those around her move in a hastened pace.

It is not long before Falcon begins running down the halls screaming that it is show time.

One by one each entertainer files out of the dressing room with their belongings in tow.

“As far as why I do drag,” Frost says.

Shot in the Triad

There are two more entertainers that have managed to quietly take their place in front of the wall-to-wall makeup mirror.

Timothy Lee Day, known as Nicole de’ Lancret in the drag queen circuit, is in a mad dash to finish his makeup in time for the show. He periodically asks for a time check.

The closer it gets to show time the faster everyone starts to move, except

Recycle this paper.

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

26

FUN & GAMES The silver hour

L

argemouth bass are America’s Fish as much as the Dallas Cowboys are America’s Team. At their best, they strike aggressively, fight hard and possess voracious appetites — they’ll eat anything half their own

by Anthony Harrison size. They also exhibit a plain, understated beauty seen in most American game: mottled green and brown back and sides, white belly, a broad, black stripe down their middle. Yet, paradoxically, the vicious bass is sometimes a lazy, fickle bastard.

High summer can be a rough time to fish. As the season enters its dog days in early July, water levels plummet and water temperatures soar. Most larger fish head towards deeper water around the 10-foot mark, often in the middle of many ponds.

If you’re a pauper without so much as a johnboat to paddle — that is, yours truly — you’re often left on the bank with your rod in your hand, SOL, unless you rise before the sun heats the water.

I found myself at that moment in time on the morning of July 16.

I awoke, tired yet alert. I opened my eyes, lids unfurling like an old Persian hall carpet, fold flipping slowly over fold. Pitch black still filled my room, and no sunlight streamed through the thick, white slats of my wooden blinds.

Oh, to hell with this, I thought.

Knowing it was far too early for a Saturday morning, I flopped onto my left side to check out the red display of my digital alarm clock: 5:43 a.m. That clock is three minutes fast.

“Oh, to hell with this,” I repeated, thinking aloud this time. My torpor had vanished, despite only receiving a few precious hours of sleep. I was wide awake, and no technique on hand could hasten me back to Nod. After a flurry of mental curses, I decided: Might as well go bass fishing.

By 6 o’clock, I’d rustled out of bed, slid into some shorts, scarfed some Cheerios and tramped down the trail leading to the pond behind the old Jefferson-Pilot property on Gate City Boulevard in Greensboro. A curling mist already wafted over the shallow cove at the pond’s entrance where I made my first cast, steam like fog over highland moors in the gray light of dawn.

There’s a term in film and photography referring to the times after sunrise and before dusk when daylight takes on a soft, peachy hue: “the golden hour.” There’s a “blue hour,” too, in the earliest part of dawn and last moments of dusk. That morning, I saw dawn on July 16 neither as golden nor blue, but silver — light flattened by the clouded sky.

It’s this silver hour when, during the hottest summer

days, you can actually catch fish.

Of course, aside from knowing ideal conditions, fish behavior and which lures to use, there’s a lot of luck in fishing, too.

The last time I’d gone fishing was on July 4, with my co-worker Lamar and his dad. We hit Lake Mackintosh outside of Burlington a little after 2 p.m. White bass — not to be confused with largemouth — splashed in the shallows around the marina. Unlike largemouth, white bass often rove the surface in murderous packs during the height of summer, killing minnows for sport. On my first cast, I tossed my lure just behind the school and immediately had a fish on; we caught over a dozen fish in the first few minutes.

This morning, I was not so lucky. Not because I didn’t get a hit on that first cast; I did. In my dawn malaise, I’d forgotten to set the reel’s drag, so when I struck back to set the hook, line stripped off the spool and the fish threw the hook. More curses.

I walked toward the eastern side of the pond, location of the dam and a dilapidated dock. The water here would be deepest and coolest — more promising.

After I cast my curly-tailed plastic jig parallel with the dock, slowly retrieving the lure beside the wooden pilings, a bass attacked.

Bass do fight spectacularly regardless of their size. This one ran for the reeds lining the nearby dam to the right, but I pulled it back towards open water. Not to be outdone, the bass leapt, breaching the surface and shaking its head furiously in an attempt to toss the hook, to no avail.

ANTHONY HARRISON It’s the silver hour on the lake, and the only The fish then dashed for the dock pilings, things moving are the bass. but I worked it right and away. I had tired the bass considerably and thought it’d given up, but in one more desperate flight, the fish jumped, again trying to eject the hook from its jaw, then dove straight Pick of the Week down towards a log jam close to the shore next to the dock. I pulled up in the nick of time as it drove its head Wanna be a baller? underneath a limb, and I had the fish out of water in a Winston-Salem Open Ball Person Tryouts @ Wake few more moments.

Forest University Indoor Tennis Center (W-S), Friday & The bass couldn’t have weighed more than two Saturday, 4 p.m. pounds.

Can you scurry like a squirrel crossing a four-lane I released the fish quickly, but it had shredded the highway? If so, you can be an official ball retriever jig’s plastic body. I switched to a shallow-diving crankfor this year’s Winston-Salem Tennis Open. Tryouts bait and caught two others along the shore. begin at 4 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday.

But the silver hour yielded to a golden dawn. Activity Any applicant must be at least 12 years old by Aug. 1, vanished almost immediately. attend at least three two-hour training sessions and Once I’d returned home, it was only 8 a.m. be available for the entirety of the tourney, Aug. 20Summer days are too long.

27. For more info, visit winstonsalemopen.com.

‘Breaking Story’ putting the details back together.

by Matt Jones Across

Friday, July 22 @ 8pm

Bob Flemming

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Alan Peterson

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1 Buds 2 Athens is there 3 Makes it?

4 L.A. clock setting 5 Bit of resistance?

6 Places down, as carpeting 7 Dope 8 Take money off the top 9 “___ comment?”

10 Acrimony 11 Comic-strip girl who debuted in the 1930s 12 Berry for the health-conscious 13 Halloween decorations 18 Swiss Roll lookalike 22 Expressed admiration 24 Compass tracing 25 “Chop-chop!”

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28 Achilles’ vulnerable spot 29 With more “years young” 30 Well out of medal contention 31 Distiller ___ Walker 32 Northern California town that once had a palindromic bakery 33 “___ Out” (musical based on Billy Joel songs) 34 “Chicago” actress Zellweger 38 Growing planes?

40 “I remember well ...”

42 ___ 500 45 French connections?

47 AKA, before a company name 50 “___ doin’?” (Joey Tribbiani greeting) 51 Got the highest score, in golf 54 Leave out 55 Jacob’s Creek product 57 Fast money sources 58 “The New Yorker” cartoonist Addams, for short 59 “In memoriam” bio 61 Burlap material 62 Administered by spoon 63 Catch sight of 65 What Elmo calls Dagwood in “Blondie” 66 “Wooly Bully” opening number?

67 Sapphire’s mo.

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1 It may be dank 4 Civics field, for short 11 It gets laid down 14 “Now I get it!”

15 Surname on the sitar 16 Decorate with frosting 17 1967 hit by The Doors 19 Unpaid bill 20 Just meh 21 A bit of 22 “A Change is Gonna Come” singer Redding 23 Possesses 26 Hammer or sickle, e.g.

28 Part of one of the Ten Commandments 35 He followed Peyton as Super Bowl MVP 36 Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s birthplace 37 “TMZ” subject 39 Milhouse’s teacher 41 “Three Coins in the Fountain” fountain 43 Frank Herbert book series 44 River of forgetfulness in Hades 46 Three of ___ 48 Made the first play 49 T-Bone Walker’s genre 52 Cuban coin 53 7 1/2-foot Ming 54 Wise crowd 56 Texas city 60 Converse, e.g.

64 Woody’s ex 65 Long-running TV science show that hints at the other long entries 68 Business letters?

69 Caesar salad base 70 Treasure hunter’s need 71 Kickoff need 72 Pick-up area 73 Toilet paper layer

EVENTS

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July 20 — 26, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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ALL SHE WROTE The night janitor (with apologies to John Le Carré)

O

na balmy plate of July darkness in the Carolinas, Jonathan PineSol, the English night

by Nicole Crews janitor of Chateau Magnolia in Greensboro’s Fisher Park, forsook his closet behind the Air B&B check-in foyer and, in the grip of feelings he had not known before, took up his position to tidy up any grim findings left by a distinguished guest.

The Republican National Convention had just begun. Throughout the night, news of Bob Dole cadaver sightings, D-list celebrity endorsements and horrifying ginger combovers engulfed the land.

AirBnB bookings — which in record-breaking heat indexes in the South and many Southerners in Cleveland for the convention — had sunk to crisis levels. Once more in her long history, Chateau Magnolia was under siege.

But Jonathan PineSol was equal to the challenge. All over Greensboro, “Magnolia,” as the house-cum-hotel was affectionately known to uber drivers and habitues, presided physically and traditionally on the dodgy end of the park, peering upon downtown and the folly of ex-urban life.

The more things changed in Fisher Park, the more Magnolia stayed herself, unbending in her standards, a bastion of civilized style in a world intent on going to the devil.

Jonathan’s point of vantage was a small recess between double doors leading to hall of bedrooms.

He was a compact man but tentative, with a Mr. Clean bald head, Brawny paper towel arms, hands like Scrubbing Bubbles and an evenly doled-out slipperiness like Pam cooking spray. His personality — though pleasant — was devoid of Joy dishwashing liquid and flowed inward, like Tide detergent.

His Old English polish was a well-kept

secret and effectively camouflaged by an Orange-Glo hardwood-floor spray of tan — but nothing that a Soft Scrub couldn’t remove.

What Soft Scrub couldn’t remove, however, was the sense of impending doom associated with the distinguished guest.

Molly Crapper was a Scot, 94, with a bad liver but crucial aim when it came to acts of filthy violence.

It’s a different Crapper, Jonathan announced inside his head, awaiting her arrival. Complete misunderstanding, whole thing. Nothing whatever to do with her. There must be two, both Crappers, both Scots. But Jonathan had been going back and forth through that hoop since the late night check-in had been confirmed.

The hour was nigh and despite his inward pleas for doppleganger-dom, his fears were confirmed as the West Highlander strode across the verdant lawn, took the steps at a nonagenarian’s bias angle and ambled into the room.

The clock struck midnight as the vile Scottish lass truncated her sausage-like body over the building’s most valuable carpet and crapped like only a Crapper could do.

It’s my job, he thought. It’s my destiny. I am Jonathan PineSol and I am the Night Janitor.

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