TCB Nov. 30, 2016 — Playing with power! by Triad City Beat

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com Nov. 30 – Dec. 6, 2016

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Dems endure PAGE 8

An Italian conundrum PAGE 23

Immigrants’ Good Funk PAGE 17

Playing with power! Super FamiCon 2016 by Anthony Harrison

PAGE 12

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016

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Sweet November

I laid in a truckload of wood for the winter a couple weeks ago, had it piled by the front door for easy access by Brian Clarey on cold nights. A store of fuel gives a man like me a certain sense of satisfaction this time of year, a kind of insurance against the coming winter and an answer to its challenge. I’m no fan of November and its brutal reminder of the impending, inevitable freeze, but it’s an important month, the lynchpin in a season of change. And I’ve learned that by the time November comes, I had best have a plan. It was just three Novembers ago that I lost my job of nine years; had I not been prepared for it, neither this column nor this newspaper would exist. Five Novembers ago I needed to stop drinking, and somehow through the preceding years I had put enough of a support system in place to make that possible. So far, so good. This November brings with it a note of

satisfaction in our professional endeavor — Triad City Beat is nearing the end of its third fiscal year on solid footing, a fact that amazes me even as I type it. And even more so than usual I feel an overwhelming gratitude for the foundation that has grown to support the castle we built in the sky so long ago. I’m a different person than I was when I took a chance on a crazy idea and somehow convinced my friends to go along with it. We all are. And the paper is changing, too. We’re adding more voices to our pages — our new columnists Jelisa Castrodale and Kat Bodrie are part of that push, and you’ll see more new bylines in our cover stories and cultural coverage in the coming months as well. For our advertisers, we’ve added new digital products and access to deep mines of data powered by technology that didn’t exist when we started this thing. And we’ve got plenty of big stories, important projects and a few more surprises in the works. Because by November, the woodpile needs to be full enough to keep the fire going.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK Here’s my thesis: I don’t think that anyone should collect video games. When we think about collecting, what we’re really doing and enjoying is the search for these items in our collection — the hunt is the thing. But when it comes to games, I think games are a very different thing than Precious Moments figures or antique salt shakers or whatever it is that you collect. Because, unlike a lot of things we collect, games have a purpose beyond simply existing on a shelf. We bought games so we could play them, and our quest to play games led to our collections. – Daniel McMillan, proprietor of Lost Ark Video Games, in the Cover, page 12

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Camino Bakery 310B W 4th Street • 336.721.9990 300 S Marshall Street • 336.293.4242 www.caminobakery.com Camino Bakery is a bakery, coffee shop and wine bar. All of our food is made fresh and by hand, every day. This holiday season we’ve got gift baskets filled with delicious treats and new merchandise! We’re especially excited about a variety of t-shirt designs and new Camino shell glassware. Come in and check out our new items or go to caminobakery.com and visit our online store.

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

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EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

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eric@triad-city-beat.com

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Jelisa Castrodale Stallone Frazier Anthony Harrison Matt Jones

Cover photography by Caption

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERN Naari Honor intern@triad-city-beat.com

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016

CITY LIFE November 30 – December 6 WEDNESDAY

Van Reipen Collective @ Scuppernong (GSO), 8 p.m. In February, the Van Reipen Collective performed a musical interpretation of Kate Colby’s “Unfinished Bird” poems. Now they return to perform an all-acoustic version of the songs from Colby’s book, Blue Hole and will have CDs available for purchase. For more information visit scuppernong.com.

THURSDAY

Sheryl Oring @ SECCA (W-S), 6 p.m. Artist Sheryl Oring, who finds clever and intriguing ways to incorporate the written word into her artistic installations, returns to SECCA after her participation in Dispatches to discuss her 12-year project “I Wish to Say” in which ordinary public citizens are invited to dictate messages to the US president. More information can be found at secca.org.

FRIDAY

Immigrant Rights Working Group @ International Civil Rights Museum (GSO), 5 p.m. Krista Craven, assistant professor of justice and policy studies at Guilford College shares stories of immigrant families in the Triad who have experienced detention at the International Civil Rights Museum. For more information visit the Immigrant Detention Program Facebook page.

Modern Robot @ Oscar Oglethorpe (GSO), 6 p.m. Modern Robot makes a Christmas spectacle at Oscar Oglethorpe, but this visit has nothing to do with procuring a new pair of cool specs and everything to do with grandma crushing reindeer. For more info about this musical documentation of Santa’s biggest helpers’ migration, visit Modern Robot’s Facebook page.

SATURDAY Xmas on the lake @ Lake Townsend (GSO), 5 p.m. Have you ever seen boats decked out in Christmas lights sailing away in the pale moonlight (yeah, I said it)? The Lake Townsend Yacht Club holds its second annual Christmas Flotilla and is inviting the community for hot cocoa, cookies and the opportunity to hob-nob with Santa. Marshmallows are strongly encouraged. For more information visit greensboro-nc.gov/ lakes.

SUNDAY

Book reading @ Greensboro Public Library (GSO), 3 p.m. Author Jill McCorkle and poet Jaki Shelton Green combine forces for a book signing and reading of Carolina Table: NC Writers on Food to support victims of Hurricane Matthew. For more information visit greensboro-nc.gov. Self-defense class @ Essential Martial Arts (GSO), 3:30 p.m. It’s not a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, but it has its purpose. Ladies 12 and up, mosey on down to Essential Martial Arts Studio to learn how to properly and successfully defend yourselves against ominous predators. RSVPs are required and can be made by calling 336.282.3000. For detailed info visit the Essential Martial Arts Facebook page events section or essentialmartialarts.com Fundraiser @ Test Pattern (W-S), 4 p.m. The Winston Salem music community comes together to raise money to support Vinnie, a devout Pokémon Go trainer, who was brutally beaten and robbed while playing the game he loved on Trade Street. In the name of Vinnie, the event will start off with a “Lure Light Up for Vinnie” and continue with constant lures at various stops around Trade Street. For more info, visit Justice for Vinnie: A Fundraiser Facebook event page.

by Naari Honor

with the Turkey

Yelling

by Jordan Green

Triaditude Adjustment

6. “Dr. Doom” by the 13th Floor Elevators Every set needs an outlier to inscribe its parameters, and this song from Texas psychedelic pioneers the 13th Floor Elevators’ final album, Bull of the Woods, marks the full distance from the raw garage energy of 1965’s “You’re Gonna Miss Me” to the outer limits of their enterprise in ’68. Roky Erickson and Stacy Sutherland’s vocals sublimely intertwine in a meditation shimmering over music that vibrates with unnatural power. The projection of their voices is gentle and hopeful, yet also edged with sadness.

Shot in the Triad

5. “7 and 7 Is” by Love A multiracial band from Los Angeles fronted by the late Arthur Lee that was active from roughly 1965 to 1968, Love defied category, leaping from baroque pop to folk-rock to psychedelia to cosmic blues. This 1966 track is representative of the band’s early forays into a variant of garage that foreshadowed punk; incidentally, it was covered by the Ramones in 1993. Opening with rat-a-tat-tat drumming and a quivering bass line, “7 and 7 Is” offers two verses of concise-weirdo-poetic lyrics that would have been right at home on the Minutemen’s 1984 masterpiece Double Nickels on the Dime.

Crossword

3. “Psychotic Reaction” by Count 5 As the quintessential ’60s garage rock song, “Psychotic Reaction” is kind of a cheat for a list that emphasizes obscurity. San Jose, Calif., like Minneapolis, was virtually ignored by the music industry while matching San Francisco, its more illustrious neighbor up the coast, with equal talent. Armed with a simple and rudimentary riff, the arrangement resolves into a spare, concise interpretation of a Muddy Waters solo

4. “Deep in the Heart of Nebraska” by Orphan Egg More proof that sonic invention isn’t limited to the two coasts, Orphan Egg established an outpost of psychedelia in Nebraska in 1968. With an homage to the vast prairie sky, this song delivers gnarled riffs and monster grooves, along with a cryptic vocal: “And if you lose me now you’ll find me on the crystal stair.”

Sportsball

2. “Here I Go Again” by the Litter Ever heard of the Litter? While the summer of love was in full flower in San Francisco in 1967, the music scenes in more provincial outposts like Minneapolis were seething with chaotic inspiration and frustration. The fuzzed-out guitar and explosive vocal make “Here I Go Again” sound 10 years ahead of its time.

accompanied by trippy rhythm. The lyrics address the most enduring topic of the genre — adolescent angst stemming from romantic rejection.

Culture

1. “Thing in ‘E’” by the Savage Resurrection The idea fell somewhere between desperate measure and fantasy: About a year ago I had this notion — encouraged by my wife — to put together a cover band to play obscure ’60s psych-garage classics as a one-off for a homeowners’ version of a rent party. It never happened, of course, but I’ve made a mental list of some of the songs that would make the repertoire. They’re mind-blowing, but just obscure enough that most of my friends have probably never heard them. “Thing in ‘E’” by the Savage Resurrection, which I first heard on Parke Puterbaugh’s “Rock and Roll Study Hall” show on Guilford College’s WQFS, is a perfect example of the genre. Jagged strafes of metallic guitar sound like an undulating surf until the drums kick in and the vocal claws out of the wreckage. The repeated refrain, “My world’s better than your world,” comes across as both repudiation and invitation.

I am a part of a huge family — my mother has 23 first cousins — and when we all get together at Christmas it can be overwhelming. Food is not a problem in an Italian family like mine, and there’s plenty of space for us to hang out at my uncle’s house in New Jersey. The real issue would come when it was time to exchange gifts. For years we had been drawing names from a hat, so that each adult bought one gift to the party and received one in turn. Everybody liked to give toys to the kids, so they were covered. But the kids are older now, less prone to be showered with gifts. And the gift exchange was starting to take so long that the older relatives were falling asleep bythe end of it. So last year we switched over to Dirty Santa, a Christmas game in which each person brings an inexpensive gift —we settled on $20 — without a specific recipient in mind. Each person gets to open one gift, but if she doesn’t like it, she gets to swipe a better gift that’s already been opened by someone else. Last year the hot item was a Bluetooth speaker that swapped hands several times before landing in my lap and was then promptly swiped by my son. The crop of gifts was stocked with local art from the various cities we live in and curious items that revealed more about the giver than the receiver, like the set of Chinese puzzles my father brought to the table and ultimately took home, reclaiming the gift at the last minute from a cousin who he felt didn’t fully appreciate it. The fun, of course, is in the game — the scheming, the plotting, the bargaining. It takes less time than the traditional opening of the gifts, and it’s more fun because everyone is an active participant rather than just sitting around watching the kids open toys. It also gives us a chance to interact in a meaningful way with the people we only see a time or two a year. The gifts, though not personalized, are definitely fun. And let’s face it: Nobody needs another sweater.

Cover Story

6 obscure ’60s psych-garage classics

by Brian Clarey

Opinion

24% Some drama along

Dirty Santa

News

68% No political motivated friction

even have to deal with that. Maybe the antics of a 3-year-old gave us plenty of other fodder. Eric Ginsburg: My dad’s side of the family — where we generally celebrate Thanksgiving — all falls under the WTF tent after the election, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t political disagreements. We still argued about the best way to address Steve Bannon and his neo-nazi cretins. One family member took the “wait and see” approach, a position I argued is irresponsible and doomed to fail. But we managed to keep it civil, and I think most of the people in the room ultimately agreed with my stance, so I’m calling it a win. Our readers had a relatively Trump-free Thanksgiving, with 68 percent of respondents claiming that there was no politically motivated friction. Almost a quarter though, 24 percent, said there was some drama along with the turkey. About 8 percent admitted that their families yell and scream at each other every year.

Up Front

After a divisive election, many Americans found themselves living in blended families, with each side dug in against the other. And while the Thanksgiving table is always susceptible to… healthy differences of opinion, we suspected this year may be the worst of all. Brian Clarey: I have been having political disagreements with my relatives since I was 12 years old. It’s tapered off a bit in recent years as the age pool gets younger, and also because I’ve been successful in arguing many of my relatives around to my point of view. Still we engage in a healthy back-and-forth every year, though this Thanksgiving it was more quiet than usual. No sense getting into a whole big thing about it. Jordan Green: None whatsoever. There was some speculation about whether one of our guests voted for Trump, but my wife thinks she came to her senses. Miraculously, none of us were even tempted to talk about politics, and we didn’t

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Political arguments at Thanksgiving?

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

NEWS

Music, Pokémon Go communities converge to support assault victim by Jordan Green

After a Winston-Salem man was brutally beaten while playing Pokémon Go late at night, his friends rally to his side and start raising money to cover his medical expenses.

an administrator of the Pokémon “He’s a very genuine person,” Go Winston-Salem page — set up a Greer said. In addition to being a GoFundMe account to raise money Pokémon Go enthusiast, Greer said to help cover her friend’s phone and Mannino is also a self-proclaimed electrical bill while he’s recovering. “brony,” an adult fan of the chilJimmy Greer had finished a barWithin three hours, the effort had dren’s cartoon “My Little Pony.” tending shift at Single Brothers bar on raised $1,400. On the following “He doesn’t care what people Nov. 15 and was playing Pokémon Go Saturday, the local Pokémon Go think,” Greer said. “He’s a huge Star when he discovered his friend, Vincent group held a “lure party,” or vigil, for Wars fan. He’s into science fiction. George Mannino, badly beaten in Mannino. And on Sunday at 1 p.m., He’s himself. He’s very vocal about the parking lot of Famous Toastery in about 125 people met at Winston his beliefs. He’s very liberal. A lot of Winston-Salem’s Entertainment District Square Park to walk Mannino’s custhe time he kept to himself on his at 4:10 a.m. tomary Pokémon Go route, and then Pokémon walks. If there’s someone The shock felt by Mannino’s friends at 5 p.m. another 50 or so people there he would talk your ear off, but in reaction to the brazen nature of the walked the route again. Through the he was just as happy to be walking attack, which took place in a well-travonline fundraiser and passing a hat at five miles a night by himself.” eled area of downtown Winston-Salem, the gatherings, Eric Johnson said the Greer took the initiative with is matched only by their surprise at the crew has raised more than $13,000, help from some friends to organize outpouring of support. including a $5,000 contribution a multi-venue benefit concert on “The sheer brutality of it could lead from an anonymous donor, to defray Dec. 4 involving Test Pattern, Silver someone to believe that there’s some Maninno’s medical expenses. Moon Saloon and Single Brothunderlying cause,” Greer said. “I’ve “He is literally the most frustraters — all within a block of where COURTESY PHOTO Vincent George Mannino known plenty of people who have been ing internet troll on the Pokémon Mannino was attacked. mugged, and none of them ended up Go page,” Johnson said. “We call it The outpouring of support is both would occasionally walk with Mannino, looking like that. But there are plenty of ‘Trolling Lures for Vinnie.’ He was a function of the relationships Manwho had lost 40 pounds over the past criminally disturbed people who would our troll. When you walk him out of the nino established and the fact that people several months. do it.” computer into real life he’s the kind of who never even met him care about “I was a distance runner although Eric Johnson, an administrator of the person who’s going to argue with you downtown, Greer said. I got injured, and I was planning on Pokémon Go Winston-Salem Facebook about everything, but without question “A lot of it was due greatly to the trying to run a half-marathon,” Johnson page who has known Mannino since is going to give the shirt off his back to Pokémon Go players that know him,” said. “I told Vinnie: ‘If you lose the July, said he feels certain that the attack his worst enemy.” Greer said. “A large part is the downpounds, I’ll walk it with you.’ He may against Mannino was not personal. Before he became an administratown mindset as whole, with people not be able to walk, but I’ll push him “It’s a random act of violence,” he tor for the page, Johnson said he and being concerned about someone who in a wheelchair. I’m going to push him said. “It’s not targeted at a demographic Mannino got in an argument. Johnson was attacked in our backyard.” 13.2 miles. He’s doing it next spring.” or Pokémon Go players. It’s someone was temporarily banned from the page Mannino is recovering at Baptist HosThe flurry of support for with a mental disease or pital, and Greer said he’s showing signs has reached critical defect. If you think about it, of improvement. Justice For Vinnie takes place on Dec. 4 with Mannino mass, and one of the memit’s scary. It could happen to “One of his teachers came in and was a singer-songwriter set at Silver Moon Sabers of the Facebook group anyone at any time.” singing show tunes because he was inloon (632 Trade St., W-S) from 4 to 7 p.m., and recently received a message Winston-Salem police volved in drama, and he started singing from someone at the new 3 released a surveillance along to one of the songs,” Greer said. then full bands at Test Pattern (701 Trade Blind Dice game store in the video on Monday showing “He said something about not knowing St., W-S) from 7 p.m. onward. A silent auction West End neighborhood. The his parts. He’s in there. He’ll recall peothe 39-year-old Mannino is planning an event to walking westward on West ple’s names, and other times he’ll get it takes place at Single Brothers (627 Trade St.) store raise money for Mannino on Sixth Street past the partially wrong like he’s asleep. He did know the from 4 to 8 p.m. For more info, find the event Dec. 18. constructed Arts For Arts release date of the new Star Wars movie Meanwhile, Mannino’s on Facebook. Sake building, followed by an and the name of the main actress. One old friend, Jimmy Greer, has unidentified male. The video of his family members asked the date galvanized the local music shows the unidentified man stopping to allow the dispute to cool. Johnson and he nailed it. I’m a Star Wars fan, scene to join the effort. The two have and scanning the area for onlookers had promised himself he would give and I didn’t know about the new movie. known each other since they were in after crossing Liberty Street, and then Mannino a piece of his mind when they They asked, ‘Who is she?’ and he rehigh school, but Greer said they weren’t continuing in pursuit of Mannino out met in person, but instead they became sponded, ‘She’s a big deal.’” especially close. They started hanging of camera view. good friends. Mannino walked at a Both Johnson and Greer said they out more over the summer when ManThe day after Mannino’s attack, fast pace, and his Pokémon Go route feel strongly that people shouldn’t feel nino started coming downtown to play Sloane Johnson — Eric’s wife and also was also his workout regimen. Johnson unsafe downtown because of what hapPokémon Go.

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pened to their friend. Johnson said he suggests that Pokémon Go players post their plans on the Facebook page and group together if they feel the need, but he still goes out after dark on his own to play. Greer said the most important lesson of the attack is that people should be aware of their surroundings. “It could have been due in part to the fact that he didn’t look like he was paying attention because he was looking at his phone,” Greer said. “That could be someone posting on Instagram. A predator may have seen that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. It’s basically being aware of your surroundings and being safe. When I’m working at the bar we don’t let each other walk to our cars alone. We always watch each other.”

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To make a donation to help cover Vincent Mannino’s medical bills, visit gofundme.com/ m7-relief-for-vinnie.

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Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment-

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

Unfazed by Trump upset, Democratic leaders stick with Obama coalition by Jordan Green

Faced with questions about their identity and future, Triad Democrats stick together as the party of racial diversity, women’s equality and LGBT rights, while exploring ways to be more responsive to voters who feel left behind. In the wake of Donald Trump’s spectacular upset, local Democrats are pondering what went wrong for Hillary Clinton, what they might do to reach out to disaffected white voters and whether the Obama electoral coalition is still tenable. Trump’s stunning win materialized through the Republican nominee’s success at appealing to feelings of white racial resentment and economic insecurity in Midwestern states that traditionally lean Democratic, but party leaders in the Triad are quick to point out that Clinton won the popular vote by about 2 million ballots while losing the Electoral College. The intensity of support among white voters for Trump, including women who stuck with the candidate despite his sexist rhetoric and behavior, caught many Democrats off guard. Some, including Clinton’s former primary opponent Bernie Sanders, have called on the party to move past or put aside so-called “identity politics.” But in the Triad, Democratic leaders indicate that the party’s progressive coalition of people of color, women, LGBTQ people and millennials that President Obama cemented in the past two election cycles is likely to remain intact. “I think the Democratic Party is the ‘big tent’ today, and we must continue that,” said Dan Besse, a member of Winston-Salem City Council who attended the Democratic National Convention as a delegate for Clinton. “We welcome all people into active participation in our party. We do not and should not welcome backwards movement on key social issues. We will not ever again welcome racism or sexism. We will not ever again welcome prejudice against people based on sexual orientation, nationality or faith.” With Clinton’s defeat, Sanders’ voice has become elevated on the national stage. During a Q&A after a speech in Boston on Nov. 20, Sanders told a young

Hillary Clinton appeared with First Lady Michelle Obama at Wake STALLONE FRAZIER Forest University right before the Nov. 8 election.

woman who said she wants to be the first Latina US senator that her platform would have to extend beyond her ethnicity and gender. “I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country and is gonna take on big-money interests,” he said, adding that the importance of diversity is given. “But here is my point, and this is where there’s gonna be a division in the Democratic Party: It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman. Vote for me,’” Sanders said. “No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry. One of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics.” Whatever the Democratic Party’s shortcomings on articulating a message that speaks to Americans’ economic insecurities, outgoing state Rep. Chris Sgro said the last thing the party should do is distance itself from the constituencies that have anchored its base. Sgro, the executive director of Equality NC, was appointed to fill the unexpired term of the late Ralph Johnson, representing state House District 58 in Greensboro,

but will be replaced by fellow Democrat and current Guilford County School Board member Amos Quick following the Nov. 8 election. Sgro was a founding member of LGBT Democrats of North Carolina. “I think it’s vital that Democrats not lose sight of the rising American electorate and the successful coalition we have built of young people, people of color, LGBT people and women,” Sgro said. “We saw that borne out in places like Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia where we either won or made gains.” Anne Evangelista, president of Young Democrats of Guilford County, said she agrees with Sanders that Democrats could do a better job of articulating their economic message, but she said it shouldn’t come at a cost to the party’s commitments to social equality. Evangelista also serves as communications director and women’s caucus chair of the North Carolina Young Democrats. “Identity politics is why we’re the big-tent party,” she said. “We can’t just ask for people to ditch their identities. I do agree with the fact that we can talk about all these issues. We can talk about economic issues; we can talk about job creation and the economy in general. There’s plenty of room to talk about

all these issues. There’s plenty of room for both of the conversations. With LGBT issues like HB 2, the social issue is linked to the economic issue. With reproductive justice, there’s an economic issue there, too. It’s so closely linked to a woman’s ability to get the job she wants.” At the national level, Democratic leaders appear to be moving their party in a more progressive direction, in contrast to the corporate alignment that characterized Bill Clinton’s presidency and to an extent Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. As one indicator, leaders ranging from Sanders to Senate Minority Leader-elect Chuck Schumer have backed Rep. Keith Ellison, who co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to chair the Democratic National Committee. Ellison is the only practicing Muslim currently serving in Congress. The rising Democratic leader’s brother, a Winston-Salem criminal defense lawyer named Eric Ellison, serves as chairman of the Forsyth County Democratic Party. In an interview, Eric Ellison echoed his brother’s mantra when he said, “We need to have more of a focus on voters, not donors.” He said Sanders’ plea for the party to address the economic pain of Americans who feel left behind resonates. “Yes, absolutely yes,” he said. “In the presidential election, I don’t think the most important number is how many votes Clinton got. Forty-three percent of the American voting population decided to sit this one out. That’s horrible. There is a very large segment of our population that just didn’t see any reason to vote. Whoever can come up with the economic message that speaks to these people, their work will be rewarded.” Ellison said the party needs to listen to voters rather than tell them how to feel about economic issues. “We’re going to go door to door to talk to Democrats and unaffiliated voters,” he said, “and ask them: ‘What are the issues that are important to you? What needs to happen to make you engaged in the civic process?’ Go to the people on Waughtown Street or MLK. If they say, ‘My biggest concern is the high price of daycare,’ then we’ll work

High Point who attended the Democratic National Convention as a delegate, expressed disbelief about the enthusiastic support Trump received from white voters. “His message for black people was ‘stop and frisk,’ which is unconstitutional,” Brockman said. “That was a reason why black people did not vote for him. That same reason wasn’t sufficient to keep white people from voting for him — they supported him.” Sgro expressed confidence that the surge of support from white voters that propelled Trump to the White House is a one-time phenomenon. “Demography is absolutely on the side of progressives and Democrats, not because of any notion of identity politics but because Democrats have stood with people of color, with LGBT people and for reproductive rights,” he said. “Millennials are the biggest age group. People of color are going to continue to increase in the South and West and across the country. I don’t even think in the next cycle that the winning electoral college coalition that Trump used to win will be viable again.”

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

pouring into our headquarters. We had anybody and everybody handing out slate cards at polling places. We’ve had a lot of people who reached out to us, and we don’t want to lose momentum. They reached out to the Guilford County Democratic Party, Democratic Women, Young Democrats and Senior Democrats.” Ellison said the Forsyth party made ad buys with newspapers in Kernersville and Clemmons and held interest meetings there “to increase the battleground” to rural areas of the county, although he said it was unclear whether the investment translated into more votes. “North Carolina cannot even be tempted to fall into a view of looking at urban areas versus rural areas,” Ellison said. “As Democrats, we have to bring our message not only to Forsyth County, but also Stokes County; we have to bring it to not only Guilford, but also Randolph.” Making inroads in rural areas, where the electorate is whiter, poses a challenge for Democrats. Rep. Cecil Brockman, a black state lawmaker from

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on that.” Like Ellison, Guilford County Democratic Party Chair Myra Slone said she feels somewhat disadvantaged in diagnosing the national party’s challenges; the job of the two chairs is to make sure Democrats turn out in their respective counties, and at that level they both succeeded. Both counties supplied decisive margins of support — 61,225 from Guilford and 26,018 from Forsyth — for Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate for governor, who currently leads Republican Pat McCrory by almost 10,000 votes in the race McCrory has yet to concede. But the Democratic vote in the two counties would have needed to more than double to overcome Trump’s statewide lead of 173,784 votes. Rather than beating up on themselves for losing the rural vote, Slone said the Guilford party is focusing on building on momentum from new volunteers who got involved through the various auxiliaries. “We’ve had a lot of people reach out to us because there were a lot of new people who didn’t know about us before,” she said. “There were people

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Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

OPINION

EDITORIAL

Recountapalooza Is it possible for a voter of integrity to be both for and against a recount? It was just one week ago that we used this space to urge sitting Gov. Pat McCrory to concede his loss and ease off into the sunset. But the news cycle moves pretty fast these days, and a lot has happened since then. As of press time, most of McCrory’s complaints have been dismissed by county election boards across the state. Appeals have been filed in Durham. Unless McCrory knows something the rest of us don’t — election-night totals put him down in Durham by more than 90,000 votes, and Roy Cooper’s camp says the incumbent trails by about 9,700 statewide — this comes across as a bratty power play. It makes us wonder at the real possibility of McCrory seizing power through a legislative coup, and if living through that could possibly be any weirder than what’s going on in the presidential election. Up there at the top, we met initial calls for a recount with skepticism and, if we’re being honest, aggravation. For Clinton to call for a recount, even at the urging of a team of reputable computer scientists and lawyers, would have been viewed as the last, desperate act of a madwoman. Then, like it was in a script, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, unburdened by qualms about how she’s viewed, called for one. Which is another thing entirely. Amid myriad concerns about the integrity of the election —claims about Russian hackery, recent examples of elections that have indeed been compromised, like the 2016 porimary in Forsyth County, and very real concerns about US cybersecurity among them — comes the light of reason. Our elections need to be accurate. And if that means counting the votes a couple times, so be it. Under that thesis, Stein gets her recount and, we suppose, McCrory does too. It’s not exactly the same thing — for one, Stein has raised the funds for the Wisconsin recount through her campaign, while McCrory’s will come on the taxpayer dime. And going through 90,000 votes in Durham is considerably less of an enterprise than re-tallying the entire state of Wisconsin, not to mention Michigan and Pennsylvania, which are also on the table. As for Trump’s accusations of voter fraud in California, New Hampshire and Virginia… as of press time, that still sounds pretty crazy.

CITIZEN GREEN

A path to ending the political gerrymander

By the thinnest of margins are increasingly wary. North Carolina voters have As part of a panel of three judges that overturned the elected a Democratic goverprevious North Carolina congressional districting map as nor, unless the GOP conspires an impermissible racial gerrymander, Judge Max Cogburn through lawsuits and legislative also took aim at partisan gerrymandering in his concurring chicanery to have the election opinion with the February 2016 decision, slamming it as an stolen. “affront to democracy” and “in disharmony with fundamental Assuming he takes the oath of values upon which this country was founded.” by Jordan Green office in January, Roy Cooper is “Elections should be decided through a contest of issues, still in for a tough time with a Republican-controlled General not skillful mapmaking,” Cogburn wrote. “Today, modern Assembly armed with supermajorities to overturn his vetoes. computer mapping allows for gerrymandering on steroids Despite North Carolina being a state that’s politically split as political mapmakers can easily identify individual regisright down the middle — as of this week, Cooper holds 49.0 trations on a house-by-house basis, mapping their way to percent of the vote to Pat McCrory’s 48.2 percent — Revictory.” publicans control 35 out of 50 seats in the state Senate, and In Wisconsin, another three-judge panel found that they actually picked up a seat in the southeast corner of the Republican lawmakers discriminated against Democratic state. In the House, the Democrats exploited the backlash voters when they “cracked” them by dividing them among against HB 2 to gain four seats in urban Wake and Meckmany districts where they would fall short of a majority, and lenburg counties, but lost three seats in the Sandhills region “packed” them in a few districts where their favored candiand mountain west. As it stands, the Republidates would win by such large margins that it cans control 61.7 percent of the votes in the would dilute the Democratic vote statewide. ‘Elections should House, more than the 3/5 majority they need Sound familiar? be decided to overturn the governor’s veto. The plaintiffs in the Wisconsin lawsuit are It wasn’t quite a Republican wave election, expressly trying to get the attention of US through a contest but it was pretty good to the GOP. While Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, of issues, not skill- who wrote in a concurring opinion for a the Democrats won the crucial prizes of the attorney general’s office and a state Supreme ful mapmaking.’ 2004 redistricting case that he “would not Court seat, the Republicans flipped three – Judge Max Cogburn foreclose all possibility of judicial relief if council of state offices — commissioner of some limited and precise rationale were insurance, superintendent of public instrucfound to correct an established violation of tion and treasurer — and retained a US Senate seat by a the Constitution in some redistricting cases.” whopping six points. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case on appeal, And yet there is a light flickering through the gloom for Kennedy might find the tool he needs in a measure devised Democrats, however dimly, thanks to a distant federal court by the plaintiffs called the “efficiency gap,” which measures decision in Wisconsin that came down just three days before so-called “wasted” votes — those cast for losing candiThanksgiving. For the first time, a state legislative redistrictdates and those in excess of 50 percent plus one cast for ing plan has been struck down by the courts as an unconstivictorious candidates. When one party’s total wasted votes tutional partisan gerrymander. outnumber the others, that’s the efficiency gap. Based on Partisan gerrymandering has been around almost since historical data, the plaintiffs propose that any redistricting the birth of the republic as a way for the majority party to plan with an efficiency gap exceeding 7 percent be considcherrypick their voters and insulate themselves from chalered evidence of a “partisan effect.” lenge. As a consequence, in North Carolina we’ve wound up During the last election, 53.3 percent of the 4.6 million with one outrageous and unpopular bill after another: HB 2, votes cast for congressional candidates in North Carolina the opt-out provision for magistrates to refuse to perform went to Republican candidates, and yet Republicans won same-sex marriages, a law preventing municipalities from 10 out of 13 seats. The fact of the matter is that the lines recognizing unofficial IDs used by undocumented people, are drawn to maximally distribute Republican votes and laws restricting access to abortion and a number of bills translate into the largest possible number of legislative seats. designed to take control away from cities. Based on a comparison of wasted votes for candidates in Since roughly the passage of the Voting Rights Act in both parties, the North Carolina congressional map has a 1965, the courts have found racial gerrymandering to be a pro-Republican efficiency gap of 19.3 percent. violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth The Democratic-leaning cities in North Carolina are efAmendment. However unsavory, partisan gerrymandering fectively disenfranchised, and it’s no surprise that our elected has essentially been treated as a legal function of the grimy representatives aren’t listening to us. business of transacting political power. But federal judges

A call for explanatory writing in an era of uncivil discourse

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Laura L. Aull is an assistant professor of English and linguistics at Wake Forest University and the author of First-Year University Writing.

Opinion

language patterns in television broadcasts, web-based language, and popular magazine essays in the Corpus of Contemporary American English shows that they are closer to early student writing: They are much more likely to boost and generalize claims with words like everyone knows, it is clear that, and without a doubt than more formal academic genres such as research articles. And in advanced student writing at the University of Michigan and all over Britain (in Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers and the British Corpus of Academic Written English), argumentative essays contain more negation, more intensifiers and more generalizations about anyone and everyone, while proposals and reports do not include as many. What does this mean for civil discourse? To me, this is an opportunity to call on students’ developing ability to summarize and synthesize, to thoughtfully and accurately analyze and represent existing views. In popular essays and social media, students often read singular and emphatic views, and they may also reasonably think this is what they are being asked to write in argumentative essays at school. In the meantime, they are less often asked to represent many views and to identify exceptions and gradations rather than generalizations. The recent election serves as a call for all of us to consider how to step back and be able to understand multiple points of view, and to engage them in a civil way. One way to value and reward those skills, in students’ thinking and discourse, is to consider how to incorporate and reward thoughtful treatment of many perspectives, not only one, and not only our own.

News

which you take a position on whether participation in organized school athletics should be required (Accuplacer Writeplacer, 2016); and, Do you agree or disagree with Goldman’s argument that patriotism is based more on arrogance than on logic? (UMass Amherst writing placement). Even as standardized-test agencies seem to be moving to include analysis along with argument, most of these essay tasks implicitly if not explicitly privilege a single argument, a winning argument, as the goal of writing. Students in late secondary school and in early college — early voters and the future of our voting base — are invited again and again to write about their own views. I myself was trained to rely heavily on argumentative essays in my own assignments. Yet this goal, and its primacy in the writing tasks of students transitioning into college-level writing, seems more rooted in an institutionalized tradition than a clear rationale. How often are late high school and early college students asked to thoughtfully summarize and synthesize others’ perspectives, as a clear precursor to crafting their own view — or as the end goal itself? I am more interested than ever in this question after researching the common features of student writing that frequently shows a clear tendency toward overtly persuasive features. In a study of almost 20,000 incoming college student writers compared to published academic writers, key characteristics of the student writing included: more amplifying words like extremely and very than qualifying words like perhaps or possibly, more negation and adversative words like not and but, and more generalizing phrases like people today. In contrast, advanced academic writers use more hedges than boosters, more additive connectors like additionally, and few generalizations. But here is where it gets more interesting. A look at

Up Front

In the wake of polarized and uncivil election discourse, many parents and educators are wondering what happened and what to do. As a professor and researcher of writing, my by Laura L. Aull own answer is this: Take care how, and how often, we teach argumentative essays in schools. Teach explanation and synthesis instead. The common use of the argumentative essay in US schooling dates back to unprecedented growth in higher education and a literate middle class in the early 20th Century. College was no longer the purview of an elite group from similar backgrounds, and more students meant two things: an insufficient number of teachers trained in writing instruction and a more diverse student body, less likely to share knowledge of the same philosophical or literary texts to write about. With new teaching demands and less shared knowledge, many colleges began assigning the argumentative essay (or “theme”) that drew on an opinion and personal experiences in response to a general question. Beginning at Harvard in the 1880s and spreading to most US colleges in the decades that followed, students were increasingly asked to draw on their experiences and to argue based on their own view rather than explain or synthesize others’ perspectives. This continued in the 21st Century, even when writing assessments sometimes include reading as well as writing. Here are just a few examples: Write an essay in which you explain how Dana Gioia builds an argument to persuade his audience that the decline of reading in America will have a negative effect on society (SAT, 11th/12th grade, 2016); Write an essay for a classroom instructor in

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FRESH EYES

Triaditude Adjustment

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016

Playing with power! Super FamiCon 2016 by Anthony Harrison

Cover Story

Thumbs and other digits flew in a furious flurry over the game controllers, the clattering of the well-worn buttons and joysticks matching the volume of the low din of conversation humming throughout the Regency Room of downtown Greensboro’s Elm Street Center. Yet “button mashing” applied only literally to the skill exhibited by these gamers and belied the action flashing from the old television screens huddled in pods on the plywood tops of foldout tables.

Calling their advanced technique “button mashing” insults the intensive method behind the seeming madness. The characters they controlled —Fox McCloud, Jigglypuff, Princess Peach, Kirby — kicked, jabbed, slammed, threw, throttled, blocked, dodged, jumped and dove at nerve velocity across the floating stages. These people weren’t playing games — they were sparring. Most of the contenders amassed in the opulent chambers of the Elm Street Center engaged in rounds of “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” Nintendo’s 2001 blockbuster fighting game developed for the then-new Gamecube console. But tournaments for other games happened simultaneously: many iterations of the Mario Kart and Pokémon series, “GoldenEye 007” and even “Tetris Attack.” But these events swirled like tiny moons orbiting Jupiter. The gravity of Super FamiCon — the umbrella under which these gamers drew together, local amateurs and seasoned professionals alike — centered around “Melee.” “It pulls people in with that surface layer of easiness,” Head Tournament Organizer Dylan McGrath said. “People think, Oh, it’s Fox, it’s Mario, it’s Samus — they know these guys. They grew up with them. It reels you in with that nostalgia, and once it has you… if you already play games like this and you’re into e-sports, this game is the game.”

Super FamiCon was the idea of fans, by fans, for fans of Nintendo, the video game company that produced some of the most well known and beloved characters and consoles of all time, from Mario to Pikachu, from the state-of-the-art Wii U console to the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Super FamiCon’s name was a portmanteau drawing from the Japanese name of the Super Nintendo: Super Famicom.

The convention, held Nov. 19-20, received no support from Nintendo or any of its branches or subsidiaries. It was a labor of love. Joe Scott, owner of Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema, served as the convention’s executive director. The idea sprang to mind in late spring. “We’ve hosted a lot of video game tournaments and events at Geeksboro, but the ones I noticed really connected with audiences the most were the ones related to Nintendo,” Scott said in an interview. Steven Sedwick, one of the “Melee” tournament organizers, had hosted such events in both the underground cinema and coffeehouse proper of Geeksboro as cofounder of Gate City Smash, a bi-weekly “Melee” tournament. “[Gate City Smash] was just something people wanted, so we filled the void that’d been nonexistent around here,” Sedwick said. “Setting this up is just an extension of that. The scene’s growing, and people still wanna come out and play these old-fashioned video games.” Andrea Brent, president of UNCG’s gaming club and Super FamiCon’s associate marketing and coordination manager — “I wear a lot of hats,” she laughed — echoed Sedwick’s statements the night before the convention. “We have to suit lots of needs for different kinds of gamers,” Brent said. “And first-time conventions, they’re a risk people take.”

A brisk breeze rustled leaves on the trees lining Elm Street on the morning of Nov. 19, scattering old golden petals down to the sidewalk and sending them skittering across the bricks outside the Elm Street Center. The line waiting outside buzzed with chattering energy despite the blustery chill. They came from across the Southeast and up and down the East Coast, from Florida to Canada. Many dressed in plain clothes, but some already donned cosplay outfits. A couple rolled up as Mario and Luigi, complete with fake mustaches. Later, you could find a different pair of Mario and Luigi augmented by Wario, the occasional antagonist of the Mario Bros. Both men and women dressed as Link, the enormously popular playable elf of the Zelda series. Multiple Zeldas could be found here and there, but only rarely with her hero, who often seemed off on his own adventure, as usual. Inside, dozens of vendors set up shop in the upper level of the Regency Room, surrounding the egg-shaped opening leading to the downstairs ballroom. They peddled vintage games and consoles, T-shirts, screenprints, ink drawings, buttons, stickers, plush toys, tote bags, com-

Gamers crowd around old televisions to play “Super Smash Bros.

memorative lanyards, key chains, jewelry, bead art, crocheted Pokémon hats — practically any Nintendo-related, fan-made gear you could imagine, and then some. And as they waited for the tournaments in the lower level to officially begin, con-goers perused the dealers’ wares with the trained eyes of Moroccan bazaar traders. Two inspected Gamers 4 Gamers’ selection of Game Boy cartridges, many labeled in Japanese. “Best thing is, these are in English,” vendor Garrett Gomez told the pair. “You can actually tell what they’re saying!” Elsewhere, vendor Carlson Stevens, a substitute teacher from the Washington, DC area who sells games at weekend

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Melee” as it was intended — in a massive ballroom. People from across the East Coast converged on the Elm Street Center to attend Super FamiCon.

cons, held court over a row of tables offering everything from the rare Neo Geo console to a bargain bin of imported cartridges. “How much would you sell a Japanese ‘Banjo-Tooie’ for?” one guy asked. “Ten bucks,” Stevens replied. “Maybe less if you take the whole bucket.” Down the granite stairs lay the killing floor. Super FamiCon’s main events took place in the lower level of the Regency Room, but for now, a gray ribbon tied at the bottom of the staircase kept the rabid gamers out of the opulent lounge. Convention staffers like Sedwick and

Brent scurried about, attempting to pin down final touches. The television screens crowding the masses of tables blankly reflected the light shimmering from crystal chandeliers. A few moments after 10 a.m., McGrath, with his thick brown beard and gauges like bullseyes in his earlobes, galloped down the stairs. “Ballroom is open!” McGrath bellowed as he bounded into the hall. “Ballroom is open! Let’s go, guys! If you are here for ‘Melee’ and you want this tournament to work, then help me get these systems running!” Con-goers scrambled downstairs to assist, and the atmosphere in the ballroom quickly escalated to a frenzy.

ANTHONY HARRISON

Yet, even as more and more attendees filtered into the Regency Room — hundreds in the first day alone — the line outside kept growing into the afternoon.

Quiet corners became increasingly hard to find in the Elm Street Center, but as the day dragged along, Scott could be found in the upper foyer of the Empire Room, chowing on chips and guacamole from Crafted just down the block. “It’s a bearpit down there,” he said, shaking his head and

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Cover Story

staring blankly 1,000 yards past the beige papered walls. By her own admission, she bought a Nintendo 64 to One anonymous spectator said, “If ‘Melee’ is our favorIn the Empire Room, Daniel McMillan, proprietor of play with her brothers over Thanksgiving break. ite game, our second is betting on matches.” Lost Ark Video Games — Super FamiCon’s featured “A bright blue N64 came in [at Lost Ark] and I thought, The mainstage tournament streamed over Twitch.tv vendor and flagship sponsor — prepared to address some I have to have this!” Brent said. on the RecursionGG channel, so “Melee” fans across the of the convention attendees who needed a quick break Joe Scott, who conceived of Super FamiCon explicitly country and the globe could witness famous fighters duke from the literal melee in the building’s bowels. His topic: to honor Nintendo’s historic legacy, recognized Nintendo’s it out in real time. collecting vintage games. unique draw that lasts a lifetime. “Fans follow their favorite players just like they would He threw a curveball to start. “They make games that appeal to kids that are still boxers, picking them because they’re from their state or “Here’s my thesis: I don’t think that anyone should appealing to adults, as well,” Scott said. “You grow up town,” McGrath said in an interview before finals comcollect video games,” McMillan said in his soft Tennessee playing ‘Super Mario Bros.’ as a child, and you later play it menced. “The same way boxers and fighters have appeal, drawl. “When we think about collecting, what we’re really as an adult, and it’s still fun. It’s never not fun.” ‘Melee’ players have the same deal.” doing and enjoying is the search for these items in our Throughout his panel, Dan McMillan drew on this “Melee” attracts all kinds. collection — the hunt is the thing. But when it comes to eternal fun as a classic game’s raison d’être. Colin Green, known as SS Colbol, traveled from Orlangames, I think games are a very different thing than Pre“In collecting games, we lose sight of why we started in do, Fla. to participate. cious Moments figures or antique salt shakers or whatever the first place,” McMillan said. “For me — for everyone “[McGrath] offered to fly me out, put me in a hotel, it is that you collect. Because, unlike a lot of things we — you’re gonna be happier if you think, What do I wanna pay for my registration and all that,” he said. “I love North collect, games have a purpose beyond simply existing on play, and why do I wanna play it?” Carolina, so I said, ‘Yeah, I wanna come.’” a shelf. We bought games so we could play them, and our Green has played “Melee” since its release and played quest to play games led to our collections. the original 1999 N64 title before then, nearly always as “The quest is fun,” McMillan concluded, “but the game Fox. One of the top Florida players, Green has competis the thing.” Since its debut 15 years ago, “Melee” — in which beed in “Melee” tournaments for nearly 11 years; he and McMillan’s argument may have struck some as strange loved Nintendo characters beat the crap out of each other McGrath knew each other from previous events. He plays at a classic gaming convention, even hypocritical com— has become a spectator sport all its own. professionally, augmenting his income working part-time ing from the owner of a vintage game store. But other Watching two “Melee” professionals duke it out on the in a college textbook store. vendors and gamers made similar statements about the main stage of the Regency Room provided all the amped“I just try to go to as many events as I can, trying to get exploding interest in classic video games. up excitement, intensity and dynamics of a prize fight. better and better,” Green said. “If I get good enough, I “It’s a lot like vinyl,” vendor Carlson Stevens said. “The Dozens of players, on break from their own rounds, gathmight get picked up by a bigger sponsor.” pendulum has swung so far digital that people yearn for ered around pairs of digital pugilists as their fights shone Though he views “Melee” as work, he still finds joy in it. something more physical. Cartridges have such But playing on a pro circuit strains the pleasure. an element… it’s almost like a piece of art. You “People thinking I’m good and high expectacan display it on a shelf, but play it, too.” tions for myself means instead of purely playing His daughter, funnily enough, isn’t into video for fun, there’s always going to be that pressure games at all. to perform,” Green admitted. “I wish it wasn’t “She just thinks of them as currency,” Stevens there, but you can’t make it go away.” said. “She’s into chess. We’re both old-school In an early round, Green played against Ian gamers to some degree.” Datta, aka Clementine, a precocious 13-year-old Josh Schwartz, who established Gamers 4 Chapel Hill native who began playing “Melee” at Gamers in Cullowhee six years ago, waxed psyage 4 and started competing two years ago. chological in his assessment. “He reminds me of me at that age,” Green said “I always sell Ataris to guys in their fifties,” he of Datta. said. “You know why? They lost them. Their par“He actually beat us in doubles,” McGrath ents sold them. And they want them back. They added. ANTHONY Attendees filed in, but new arrivals kept adding to the line want to relive their childhoods. They all have Datta is a slight, shy, androgynous kid, almost HARRISON outside the Elm Street Center. a list of games in their heads, because they’re excessively intelligent, who specializes as Captain the games they played back in the day. It’s that Falcon from “F-Zero” — the power-hitter of simple. on a projector screen, cheering and jeering in support “Super Smash Bros.” characters. “You don’t get many 10-year-olds saying, ‘Wow, can I of their favorite fighters, all possessing singular noms de “I play the best when I’m having fun or I’m styling on my play that NES?’” he added. guerre: Sharkz, Kaeon, DruggedFox, EMG n0ne, $mike. opponent, when everyone else in the crowd is having fun,” Yet some younger gamers do find fun in the systems “Stack it up! Stack it up! Stack it up!” they chanted Datta said. “He’s like a luchador. When he’s doing well, he before their time. when players went on a hot streak, delivering devastating looks like he’s one of the best characters.” Convention manager Andrea Brent, who has played combos against their competitor, adding more and more Datta, who has four older brothers, had to sneak in his video games since she could hold a controller, counted damage to the poor soul before slamming them off the playing time as a child. “Contra,” “Double Dragon II,” “Bubble Bobble” and the stage to certain, explosive doom. “We only had two controllers, so instead of switching original “Super Mario Bros.” as some of her favorite titles As in boxing, money changed hands between the specoff every round, they would tell me to shut up and go up— all original NES games. tators, bets called out like at an auction. stairs,” Datta said. “I’d wake up very early in the morning “People like me, we’re getting older, and we’re the most “I got a buck on n0ne; anyone like Mike?” — 1, 4 o’clock in the morning — and just play ‘Melee’ by nostalgic generation,” Brent said. “[Millennials] saw things “I’ll give you $5 is you win this, man! Five bucks! Think myself in the basement. I’d close all the doors, put towels happen in a flash. We grew up really quickly. We went about it!” under the door so they wouldn’t hear the clacking of the from our parents’ NES to PS4. Everything went so fast “If anyone wants to take this, this guy’s got $20 on controller. that we kind of missed out.” Sammy.” “I did get caught by my mom once, and she got mad at

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expectations. “a bigger convention with more vendors, more guests, me, sent me off to bed, but I still just did it anyway,” Datta “I was really aiming for 500 people, and we doubled more tournaments, more hype.” laughed. that,” Scott said. “It’s hard to be sure, but I know we tipped Placing the convention venue in the Elm Street Center No matter how peeved his mother got, Datta’s parents over 1,000 by the end of Day Two. We didn’t have a ticker — lodged in the aorta of town — fulfilled another purpose. encourage his playing. to count everyone, but that’s something we’ll make sure “Just looking at the changes to the cultural landscape “They trust me enough to just drop me off at a tourof downtown Greensboro, I didn’t see a big push nament and know I can have fun and not waste for inclusion,” Scott said. “A lot of the businesses their hard-earned money,” Datta said. there are all being built for the same clientele.” While prodigious, Datta wouldn’t consider The convention might have been a gamble, playing professionally. But he believes “Melee” but Scott and the others felt Greensboro benefithas enduring appeal and has launched into the ted from Super FamiCon and will in future years. realm of a modern classic thanks to its technical “I wanted to make an event that would bring intricacy. people downtown who would not have gone “There’s always a different thing you can do,” downtown otherwise,” Scott said, “and I think we Datta said. “After 15 years of this game being out, succeeded.” people still find different things to do with it. In Super FamiCon drew people not just from the ‘Street Fighter,’ there’s set combos you always suburbs, though. Gamers from across the counknow will work, but in ‘Melee,’ there’s some things try came for the convention, expanding Scott’s you can be creative with and play your own style. original scope and potentially establishing Super “It’s like a book that you read or a toy that you FamiCon as an attractive draw for Greensboro in played with that will be fun until you die,” Datta the future. added. “Best first year for a tournament, yes or no?” Green didn’t mince words. Dylan McGrath asked the crowd during “Melee” “‘Melee’ is, hands-down, my favorite game of all time,” he said. “Once I found ‘Melee,’ I was ANTHONY finals. This trio competed together in the cosplay contest as HARRISON characters from the Zelda franchise. The spectators agreed with him. done.” “Who’s coming back next year?” he asked. The volume of cheers should leave little worry for we do next year.” Super FamiCon 2017. Scott has already booked the Elm Street Center for In its inaugural year, Super FamiCon far exceeded its Super FamiCon 2017 for the same weekend. He imagines

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Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

CULTURE How Bart Ortiz became a total potato head by Eric Ginsburg

“I was reading cookbooks the he Idaho Potato Commission likely doesn’t get way people read novels,” he said. very many phone calls. But they were more than His perseverance and work ethic happy to field one almost a decade ago from paid off, and he climbed up the Bart Ortiz, a self-taught cook on a sort of obsesQuaintance-Weaver Restaurants sive mission to make the best French fries. & Hotels ladder until he was reFries are the kind of free side most restaurateurs sponsible for the company’s Print are more than happy to overlook, regarding them as Works Bistro and Green Valley a personal annoyance or minor perk for patrons. At Grill in addition to Lucky 32. fancier establishments, some proprietors are eager to He later switched into an operaup the cost for an order of potato sticks, pretentiously tional role on the hotel side of the dubbing them pomme frites while offering little to business, bought Tex & Shirley’s in justify the snobbery. the Friendly Center from his dad Bart Ortiz falls in the middle. and began consulting. But before Sitting at a preview dinner for the Traveled Farmer that, he spent “at least 40 hours” — the restaurant reboot of Marshall Free House in the on French fries. so-called Midtown district of Marty Kotis’ Greensboro Explaining his rationale for the empire — Ortiz casually prodded the people sitting time expended, Ortiz talked about closest to him on the fries. Not one to brag or build the historical efforts McDonald’s himself up, he almost accidentally let slip how much made into precise humidity, stortime he’s invested in thinking about fries, experimentERIC GINSBURG age and preparation requirements Bart Ortiz isn’t cutting the fries himself, but it’s his process, ing and perfecting the production process. developed over countless hours, that Traveled Farmer uses. for its early fries. Suffice to say The fries weren’t meant to be the star of the meal, that more thought went into it and they certainly weren’t. Fries aren’t supposed to a partial remodel makes the inside less stuffy. than the average consumer would be a star at all. But given how frequently restaurants But Ortiz and the rest of the crew still want to apimagine, especially considering how remarkably basic serve them, Ortiz figures they damn well better be peal to foodie types, who Ortiz hopes will understand the food product is. tasty. And over the last decade, he’s figured out how to that the concept of terroir for wine applies to ingreIt’s been years since Ortiz dedicated his crazy studymake good on that mission. dients like potatoes as well. Time of year affects the ing hours to fries, and Idaho potatoes specifically, but Ortiz, the president of Kotis’ garishly named Kick quality of the ingredient too, he said, admitting that he can still recount the process of cutting, soaking, Ass Concepts, holds considerable experience in the the best time of year for these fries is likely early spring brining, blanching, cooling and frying the potatoes. He restaurant industry. His family moved to the area from when the spuds are the right age. treated it like a science, measuring starch and sugar Michigan after his dad bought Tex & Shirley’s in 1987, Regardless of where the ingredients come from, content levels and aiming for targets that the Idaho and he spent much of his childhood hanging around it’s this principle of rigorous sourcing that Ortiz said Potato Commission gave him. He would weigh the the joint. That’s where he started out as a teenage carries over. There’s nothing on the menu that he’s potatoes after blanching, toying with temperature and short-order cook, and later he found employment as spent as much time on as the fries, but Ortiz isn’t the time as he tried to reduce the weight by 33 percent. a line cook at Lucky 32 and working at a bakery and chef here, either. Their team, including Chef Jay Pierce, He learned the visual signs of when a potato was catering company. took the extra steps to find conscious suppliers with ready for the next step, pondered questions like when Ortiz’s path diverged from food only briefly — afhigh-quality products, from the catfish down to the to remove the skins and discovered tricks like allowing ter graduating from college in Indiana, he wound up potatoes, he said. the fryer to recover after use. teaching music and band in Charlotte. The French fries are not the most delicious or Ortiz brought the technique he perfected almost 10 “The pull to be in restaurants was strong, though,” interesting thing on the menu — they’re competing years ago with him when he joined Kotis’ operation, Ortiz said, sitting on a barstool at the Traveled Farmer with dishes such as a tasty low country shrimp bowl, a and to the Traveled Farmer specifically. The timing and recently before the restaurant opened its doors for the Korean rice bowl and a pork schnitzel — and Ortiz isn’t temperature during preparation have been tweaked, day. the most skilled cook at the operation. But the fries but on the whole the fries stay true to Ortiz’s method. He landed back at Lucky 32, this time as a manager certainly have the best backstory, and they’re remarkThey’re fried in beef tallow, or fat — just like the old of flavor and consistency for the restaurant’s thenably good, too. McDonald’s method, Ortiz pointed out, though he also three locations. Staff was invited to submit ideas for drew a parallel to the popularity of duck fat fries. the restaurant’s rotating, seasonal menu, but being The Traveled Farmer emphasizes the local sourcing featured wasn’t just a matter of coming up with a good on some of its ingredients, but Oridea; it needed to work in terms of tiz said they stop where it means a timing, consistency and cost. Pick of the Week compromise in quality. Fries made Drawing inspiration from his Visit the Traveled Farmer at local potatoes wouldn’t be grandmother’s cooking — his famWell kiss my grits or eat ’em, your choice 1211 Battleground Ave. (GSO) from any good, he said, and that’s one ily is Mexican — Ortiz submitted Puttin’ on the Grits @ St. Mary’s Community Life or at traveledfarmer.com. reason why they use Burbank pohis idea for a lamb enchilada. And Center (HP), 8 a.m. tatoes from Idaho when they’re in it worked. The wonderful folks at St. Mary’s have brought season, diverting to product from He felt underprepared, given his together various grits recipes from local restauNorth Dakota when necessary. lack of formal culinary training, working in an environrateurs for a community fundraiser breakfast to Part of the aim of the new restaurant is to appeal to ment with people who possessed far more experience. be held in the church’s Great Hall. The proceeds a broader clientele than its predecessor, including the They didn’t hesitate to point out that gap, either. from Puttin’ on Grits benefit the Community Clinic kind of people who eat across Battleground Avenue at That didn’t stop him. Then in his twenties, Ortiz of High Point. For more info call 336.841.7154 or the Mac’s Speed Shop chain or Red Cinemas next door. would study “like crazy” at night, and he kept working visit stmarysepisc.org. The price point is down from Marshall Free House and his way up.

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The boozy hot chocolate experiment

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Krupnikas, a Durham-based honey liqueur, was the clear winner.

terscotch schnapps or tequila — apparently it makes a good Mexican hot chocolate — and even combos like vanilla vodka and Chambord, a raspberry liqueur. But right now, I’m taking a break from hot chocolate, and with the all-clear from my doctor after a brief hiatus from drinking, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

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Krupnikas, the Durham-made honey liqueur, is normally bad on its own. I was skeptical it would work, but it was delicious, placing second after the ruby port in my book. Ryan loved it, too, saying it’s more than the sum of its parts. We both hated Disaronno, an Italian amaretto, although it’s great on its own. And we were split on Redemption rye whiskey and Rumchata, which usually tastes like milk from a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I hated them; Ryan appreciated both. With less booze, they might have been alright. If we experiment again, I want to try bourbon, but-

KAT BODRIE

Culture

It started as a cool idea: Try a bunch of different boozes in hot chocolate and write about it. In the end, my husband, Ryan, felt nauseated, and I swore I’d never eat chocolate again. We began with the experby Kat Bodrie iment’s control: whole milk, half-and-half, semisweet and bittersweet chocolate chips, vanilla and salt, combined slowly over a makeshift double-boiler. This was one of our best batches, and we regretted using it for science instead of sipping. But we’re fearless explorers, so I chose nine bottles from our extensive liquor cabinet and measured two teaspoons of each into three tablespoons of hot chocolate — a 1-to-5 ratio, which seemed reasonable. The ruby port, a sweet fortified wine, was surprisingly good. I expected it would be too sweet — Ryan thought so — but I took a second sip. Tawny port, the ruby’s dry cousin, was terrible. “Not even once,” Ryan commented, referring to the Meth Project ad campaign. Since red wine in hot chocolate is a thing now, I added some from our open bottle of Los Cardos, a middle-of-the-road malbec. “Reminds me of a cake I once threw up,” Ryan said about the mixture. In future, I’ll try a cabernet sauvignon or garnacha instead. I was hopeful about Snap, a gingersnap liqueur, since chocolate-covered Moravian cookies are so easy to eat. One sip triggered my gag reflex. “Very promising,” Ryan wrote as I dry heaved over the sink. I can’t even see different proportions working out on this one. I planned to save St-Rémy VSOP brandy for last since it’s my go-to for hot chocolate, but moved it up to take a break from bad ones. Even it tasted weird. Since we were using sourdough bread as a palate cleanser, the culprit was probably the booze to chocolate ratio.

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

CULTURE From Greensboro to Charlotte to Sundance, and back by Anthony Harrison

hanksgiving brings family and friends together as much if not more than any other holiday. Charlotte rock band Swim in the Wild — self-styled “adventure alternative,” effectively fusing indie rock and ’90s alternative, folk and funk, country and punk — exemplified this tradition. The group formed six years ago in the Queen City, but their roots lie in the Triad. The core four members of the band — multi-instrumentalist brothers Michael and Steven Hall, lead guitarist Grant Gautreau and bassist Cameron “Gersh” Godwin — all grew up in Greensboro, and they’ve known each other for many years. Between the Hall brothers, a chance inversion of sibling rivalry led to them pursuing music together. “Normally, when it came to older brother/younger brother stuff, it was [Steven] playing whatever sport I was playing,” Michael Hall said in an interview before headlining at the Blind Tiger on Nov. 26. “I took guitar lessons when I was young, and I liked it okay, but I didn’t have anybody to play with. When he started playing, I felt like I was missing out; it made me re-learn how to play guitar, and I finally had someone to play with.” Steven Hall had met Gautreau in kindergarten and they stayed friends ever since. The Halls and Godwin met through mutual friends. “Michael and I grew up around the Guilford College area,” Steven Hall said. “Cameron was on the Grimsley [High School] side, and we were on the Western Guilford side.” They skateboarded together, but didn’t play music. “There was a young music scene around Greensboro back 10 years ago where people would pass around flyers at school, and people actually went out,” Godwin said. For example, Godwin played with a band named My Name is Distance. “I was one of the only people not in those bands,” Hall added. “In my mind, I was like, Screw ’em.” In the mid-2000s, the universe seemed determined to separate the boys. Michael Hall relocated to the Queen City, majoring in electrical engineering at UNC-Charlotte beginning in 2003. Yet, seemingly preordained, they all eventually wound up in the same place. In 2006, after his sophomore year at Grimsley, Godwin moved down to Charlotte with his family after his father received a promotion at FedEx. He studied at Central Piedmont Community College, receiving an associate’s degree in arts. Two years later, Steven Hall followed his brother’s footsteps, also majoring in engineering at UNC-Charlotte — civil engineering, specifically. The guys reconnected, then began jamming. The jamming slowly became more serious. “It wasn’t a band yet,” Godwin said. “But it was always a goal to form a band,” Hall added. The four began writing songs in 2010 and booking shows the following year. “We played for this church to help get it started,” Hall recalled. “That was kind of crazy. Three, four-hour services. We were like, ‘What is going on here?’” Swim in the Wild soon became a full-time commitment. By 2013, the band played in Charlotte every weekend, hit the road for small tours and released a self-titled EP. Their reputation grew to the point of national attention, playing at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. “It was totally random,” Michael Hall said. “Right place,

right time. We hooked up with some promoter out there, and at first they told us, ‘It’s not gonna work out this year, sorry,’ but then, with maybe two weeks’ notice, they called us back and said, ‘Oh yeah, how would y’all like to headline Monday night?’” “Lil Jon was playing right across ANTHONY the street,” Godwin Swim in the Wild return to Greensboro — home, for most of them HARRISON — over the Thanksgiving weekend. remembered. The festival has booked the band for 2017. “Last year, we flew, but this year, we’re gonna drive and play haven’t been at all.” a few gigs between here and Utah,” Steven Hall said. “Festivals,” Steven Hall said. “Europe. The past year has seen the biggest jump in the band’s forRussia.” tunes. Their first full-length album, One if by Land, factored Wherever Swim in the Wild’s adinto this great leap forward. venture takes them — and they have “We didn’t actually have a release show for the EP,” Godwin potential to go far — they’ll never forget said. “For this one, we built up suspense for the release, really their roots. tried to make an event out of it, not just the fact we had music recorded.” Following the release of One if by Land, the group added guitarist Jeff Small, keyboardist Josh Thompson and djimbe player Jordan Townsend to the touring lineup. While Small and Thompson hail from Charlotte, Townsend first met the Hall brothers back when they were tykes — he’s a Greensboro native, too. Swim in the Wild played their homecoming gig at the Blind Tiger with their beginnings in mind. They’ve had a big year, and they wanted to give thanks to the people who’d supported them since the start. Godwin paid tribute to one who’s been there for him his All Showtimes @ 9:00pm entire life, inviting his older brother Zach to play guitar on one song, a cover of Blink-182’s “Stay Together for the Kids.” 11/29 Karaoke Forging ahead, the band has its sights set on branching out. “Putting the album out in June, I think that kind of locked 11/30 BINGO in with everyone: Okay, we’re done with bars,” Michael Hall said. “We’re gonna push for venues like Blind Tiger and solid, 12/1 Bjorn and Francois original-music spots.” “We’re trying to hit all the surrounding states,” Godwin 12/2 3st said. “Go down to Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia — all these places we’ve only been to a few times or

Pick of the Week Rocking the bells Estrangers @ Garage (W-S), Thursday, 8 p.m. There’s no better way to warm up a cold bum than swinging it at the Garage. Join the Estrangers, No One Mind and Victoria Victoria for a night of live music that brings a little something for everyone, from psychedelic to pop. For more information check out the Garage on Facebook.

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CULTURE Filmmaker brings new type of funk to the screen by Naari Honor

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Filmmaker Adam Kritzer participated in a Q&A at Geeksboro following the screening of his film.

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Capturing inked flesh Kelly L. Taylor @ Tattoo Revival (W-S), Friday, 7 p.m. Still-life artist and Delurk Art Gallery member Kelly L. Taylor blends her self-portraits of inked flesh with Tattoo Revival shop owner and artist John Slater’s vintage-inspired tattoos to create a unique display of the peculiar and eccentric. For more information visit paintingpoppy.com and Tattoo Revival’s Facebook page.

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techniques required to produce parts of the movie. In turn the work of both the professionals and interns can be seen throughout the final product of the film. “Why I say it was film training and visual literacy is because, just as much as you get down to the technique and training,” Kritzer said. “We also double back to presentation. Whose story is whose? Who is telling this story? What do you see represented and what do you see an absence of in terms of representation? We are taking these technical skills and abstract concepts and we are working through them and at the end of each week applying them to a script.” Good Funk is a movie filled with stories within stories. At various intervals, characters deliver monologues that provide a glimpse into their interior lives. In one scene, a young man named Terence lays on the couch of his father’s empty apartment talking to his ghost. During the conversation, he shares the story of a train ride in which he notices a little boy sitting on a seat while his mother stands near him. When the mother declines Terence’s offer for a seat he pays closer attention to her and notices that she exits the train without her son. Terence feels compelled to care for the child instead of getting help. As the scene played before the audience at Geeksboro, whispers could be faintly heard. They were later shocked when Kritzer revealed that he experienced the story first hand. “I’m very immersive,” he said. “You have to get in there. It’s important to know what you know and to know what you can’t speak on and know what is not your place and what you have to defer.”

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If you’re making a movie about a Haitian community in Brooklyn and it’s made by a bunch of white Polish dudes from North Carolina, it’s going to feel disingenuous,” filmmaker Adam Kritzer said. “It can come from a place of generosity, but not from a place of authenticity”. The day after Thanksgiving — notorious for Christmas shopping and traffic jams — Kritzer nestled into a well-worn couch at Geeksboro in Greensboro to discuss the unique production approach of Good Funk, his independent film about three generations of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, premiering that evening in the small downstairs movie theater. “I said this film needs to be made by 50 percent people from this community,” Kritzer said. “This can’t be made by a bunch of outsiders because just statistically having those numbers are going to be super problematic.” The story of how Good Funk was made is just as interesting as the emotionally gripping narrative that follows a newly single mother struggling with her emotionally challenged child, a couple dealing with the decision of entering parenthood and dealing with aging parents, and elders battling change. “I realized, even before I started to approach preproduction, was that this was not my story to tell,” Kritzer said. “So, I wanted to be exceedingly careful to create a new model that allowed me to approach it more like a community organizer than strictly a filmmaker. So I lived in the neighborhood for a year.” By living in the community that he wanted to provide the focus for his movie, he found he could transfer the spirit of its people into his characters more easily. One scene depicts a mother, Akifah returning home late one evening with her daughter Kolo sleeping in her arms to find that they have been evicted. Shortly after discovering that she is now homeless, Akifah loses her minimum-wage job at a fast food restaurant. Even as a possible solution is presented, she still cannot save her home. Kritzer told the audience at Geeksboro that the inspiration for the series of hardships came from a woman in Red Hook who was experiencing the same events. As part of his effort to maintain integrity in his endeavor, Kritzer also created an apprenticeship program during the preproduction phase of the film. “It was a real symbiotic development between the two things,” Kritzer said. “After the year of working there, I had a really rough draft of a script. I recruited young people in the neighborhood from 18 to 25. They all participated in a six-week film training, visual-literacy program.” During Kritzer’s year of living in the Red Hook community, he found that the people he began to connect with were not individuals deeply rooted in the film industry. So when it came time to start work on his film, finding people to add to his team with the needed experience in both film and knowledge of the community was far and in between. “It became a necessity to say, ‘Okay, if I can’t find people to work with this film in this community who could be my cinematographers the answer isn’t to just scrap and say that I am going to make it with a bunch on NYU grads,” Kritzer said. “The answer, to me, was to create an educational literacy program.” Kritzer’s program developed during the production of Good Funk. While producing the film, the professionals involved were required to teach the apprentices the skills and

Nov. 30 — Dec. 6, 2016 Up Front News Opinion

od Broadway, head coach of the NC A&T University Aggies football team, has plenty to be proud of, what with his guys going 9-2 during the regular season, earning a bid to the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision by Anthony Harrison Tournament and personally receiving another nomination for the Eddie Robinson Award for coach of the year. But he doesn’t care about accolades. “You know, that stuff, I have… I don’t pay a lot of attention to that stuff,” Broadway said in an interview. “All that stuff’s just politics.” All he’s interested in is coaching. Broadway, a native of Oakboro in the southern Piedmont, got into football in his early teens. “It was just something everybody was doing at the time,” Broadway said. But, perhaps unlike many of his peers, he wanted to be a coach practically from the outset. “Ever since I was in the sixth grade, I wanted to be a coach,” Broadway said. “I just had a couple coaches when I was younger that I looked up to and really admired. I went to college and played, and I really enjoyed that experience, but I just wanted to be a football coach.” Broadway played as a defensive lineman for the

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SPORTSBALL Broadway builds on coaching Aggies

UNC-Chapel Hill Tar Heels from 1974 until 1977, participating in the Heels’ close games against Mississippi State University in the ’74 Sun Bowl and the University of Nebraska in the ’77 Liberty Bowl. He performed admirably, receiving All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors in his senior season. “I learned a million things at Carolina,” Broadway said. “The importance of time management, teamwork, hard work, dedication — all those things that come along with being in Rod Broadway football.” After graduating in 1977, Broadway embarked on his dream career of coaching football. Over the next three decades, he coached defensive lines at East Carolina University, Duke University, the University of Florida and his alma mater, Chapel Hill. His favorite tenure was his time at Florida under the winningest head coach of that program’s history, the legendary Steve Spurrier. Broadway said he enjoyed “the lifestyle and sunshine… and of course, we won the national championship [in 1996].” In 2003, NC Central University offered Broadway the opportunity to fulfill his lifelong ambition: The Eagles wanted him as their head coach. He accepted the offer. While he’d always hoped to be a head coach, Broadway characterized the transition from assisting to leading as “a rude awakening.” “I’d been an assistant at Division I for 24 years, and I could run a program, a successful program,” Broadway said. “But the job at NCCU was an eye-opening experience for me. When you move down like that and the resources aren’t there, it was a challenge there for a long time. I was overwhelmed; even though I had those 24 years of experience, I had zero years of head coaching. “I don’t know if there’s any preparation for being a head coach,” Broadway continued. “It’s a completely different ballgame from being an assistant coach.”

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But he kept up with it. After the 2005-06 season, Broadway left NCCU for Grambling State University in Louisiana, then arrived at A&T in 2011. “I left Grambling for two reasons,” Broadway said. “I wanted to get closer to my family, and I felt strongly about the direction the program was going.” Considering the Aggies’ fortunes when Broadway took the helm, one COURTESY PHOTO could argue Broadway enjoys challenges. “It was a program that had had nine years of really bad football, two and a half years without winning a game,” Broadway said. “But with great risk comes great reward, so I just wanted to get back home and see if I could help turn this thing around.” Coach Broadway sure did. He turned A&T from one of the worst programs in the nation to one of the best in HBCU football. “You gotta put a little spice into offense, defense and kicking game,” Broadway said. But he’d never take full credit. “When you build a program and you have success, it just means you just got a good team,” Broadway said. “And I mean from administration to the academic life. Everybody’s done their part. And our guys are finishing school now, they’re doing the right thing, and of course we’re winning. So it’s been a transformation from top to bottom with the help of a lot of good people.” No matter how well the Aggies have done in the Broadway era or how they did in the regular season, no one can doubt their loss in the first round of the tournament against the University of Richmond Spiders proved disappointing. Broadway sugarcoated nothing about the drop. “Defensively, we were awful,” Broadway said. “Offensively, we were just as bad. We made too many mistakes against a good football team. So we gotta go back to work and tape some things up before we head into next season.” Broadway doesn’t care about laurels; he just wants to coach a great team. “My reward comes from watching our players do well, watching Tarik [Cohen] become the all-time leading rusher in MEAC, seeing [defensive lineman Marquis] Ragland become an all-conference player,” Broadway said. “It’s not about me; it’s about these guys and ensuring their success. That’s where I get my joy from.”

Pick of the Week Do the Hokie-pokey Virginia Tech Hokies @ Wake Forest University Demon Deacons (W-S), Saturday, 5 p.m. It’s an Atlantic Coast Conference brawl at W. Dennie Spry Soccer Stadium as Wake Forest fights to keep its season alive and advance to the Final Four against an upstart VT Hokies squad. For more information, visit wakeforestsports.com.

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Mystery Movie Monday Wednesday, December 7 @ 7pm

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offee bean that yields more caffeine C than its counterpart 2 Venerates, slangily 3 Like an unexpired coupon 4 Flower, south of the Pyrenees 5 Bungling 6 Semillon and Riesling, for two 7 Speaker of the first line of the first episode of “South Park”

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8 “Ain’t Too Proud, ___ Differ” (Temptations hit) 9 What an Australian weatherman may say “it’s gonna be” on an August day 10 Like boulders 11 Use the minus button 13 “Citizen Kane” studio 14 “___ the news today, oh no” (Beatles lyric) 18 Neighborhood in London’s East End 20 Time ___ the Year (selection made since the magazine’s inception) 24 “___ Like the Wind” (“Dirty Dancing” song) 26 Phanerozoic, for one 27 West-side tributary of the Rhine 28 Cheer for a pescador 31 Boat part furthest away from the bow 32 Card played last in a winning game of Klondike solitaire 35 “Santa Barbara” airer, once 36 Three-word EMT skill, for short 37 Jazz artist Diana who married Elvis Presley 38 Bo Sheep in “U.S. Acres,” for one 39 Airplane activity that takes place in the air 40 Night ___ (“X-Men” character aka Hank McCoy) 43 Toyotas and Subarus, in Japan 44 Flowers that repel hummingbirds 45 Sister magazine of Ebony 47 Lives and breathes 48 Singer of the “Spectre” theme song 50 Palmolive spokesperson played by three different actresses 51 Tom whose second novel was “The Bonfire of the Vanities” 52 “... It’s ___! It’s Superman!” 55 “Analyze ___” (2002 sequel) 56 Permanent worker 57 Negative vote 58 Nickelodeon’s trademark slime

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42 Nobel Peace ___ (award given in Stockholm) 46 Hundred Years’ ___ (which lasted less than 100 years) 47 Suffix meaning “doctrine” which is not a valid Scrabble word by itself 48 One of the original Three Musketeers, along with D’Artagnan 49 Beginning-of-term activities 51 Meat ___ (“Aqua Teen Hunger Force” character with three teeth) 53 RNs report to them 54 Famous Greta Garbo line from “Grand Hotel” 58 Idiom taken directly from Shakespeare’s “King John” 59 ___ Tin Tin (movie German shepherd originally played by a female) 60 Universal plasma donor’s blood type, for short 61 Shout of the recently incarcerated 62 Tic-___-Dough (pencil and paper game) 63 Shrek in the movie series, but not in the original William Steig book 64 Did 100 kph in a 70 mph zone, e.g. 65 Opposite direction from 29-Across

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1 Sushi fish also called yellowtail 4 Amount a cab driver gives to you 8 “___ O’Riley” (“CSI: Miami” theme song) 12 Participated in racewalking 13 Like a serrano pepper, compared to a poblano 15 Olmert who preceded Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel 16 Mitsubishi off-road three-wheeler, for example 17 Exact quote from Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street” 19 Catchphrase spoken verbatim on the original “Star Trek” series 21 “La ___ Bonita” (U.S. #1 hit for Madonna) 22 ___ & Literacy (brown category in Trivial Pursuit) 23 Army service call used by Al Pacino in all of his movies (not just “Scent of a Woman”) 25 Used an old phrase 27 “Winnie-the-Pooh” marsupial parent 29 202.5 deg. on the compass 30 Conjunction that’s spelled with a backslash 31 “Better Call ___” (spin-off sequel to “Breaking Bad”) 33 Creatures proven to be found at Area 51, for short 34 Process scrupulously utilized by all news outlets (which I obviously didn’t do with a single clue in this puzzle) 38 Abbr. from the Latin for “and many more” 41 Drink produced by the real-life brand Heisler

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Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who lives in WinstonSalem. She enjoys pizza, obscure power-pop records and will probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter @gordonshumway.

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of the application process. She was also wearing red leather pants tucked into a pair of knee-high boots that were purchased at the kind of flagship store that has its own security guards at the entrance. She motioned with one gloved hand that I should follow her from the waiting area into a conference room. I took a seat across from her, beside a marble fireplace decorated with a black-and-white Consulate General sign that looked like someone had just pulled it out of the printer tray that morning. “Your application is perfect,” she said after skimming the first few pages. “I know this translation is perfect, too.” She slipped it into a folder with my name Sharpied on it while I silently thanked everyone who’s ever worked on Google Translate. She asked a few standard questions and explained that I would now be registered as a citizen in the same small northern Italian town where my great-great grandfather built a church, in the town where my great-grandparents were married just hours before they boarded a boat to America. And that was it. I gave her an American handshake, she gave me a set of European air kisses and we took a picture together in front of a small Italian flag. Despite the incredible amount of time I’d spent piecing everything together, I rode the elevator down to the lobby wishing that there had been more to it. I didn’t have to (Yes) take a civics test or name an Italian prog band (Goblin!) or the then-president (Mr. (No) Goblin?). I didn’t have to put my hand over my heart and repeat an oath of allegiance to the country and the soil that are in my blood. I don’t even speak the language, save for being able to excitedly point out a squirrel (Ecco! Uno scoiattolo!) or to ask for more strawberries. Six months later, I went back to Philadelphia to apply for my Italian passport. I stood at a scratched and stained counter, watching a sad-eyed woman staple my Kinko’s issued photographs to the top of my application. She disappeared into the back of the office and, several minutes later, returned with my own maroon and gold booklet in her hand. “Do you speak Italian?” she asked in a soft voice. “I’m learning,” I said, lying to her. “You look like an actress,” she said, but I didn’t know whether that made me feel better or worse. I managed a polite grazie as she slid my passport across the counter, pushing it past a sketched heart with the named Dominic inked in the center. And that was it, again. I left with two passports in my pocket, like Jason Bourne if he shopped at Gap Kids. My American and Italian passports and I went to a cash-only restaurant in South Philadelphia to split a meatball sandwich and a giant bowl of spumoni. “Più fragole, prega,” I told the waitress. More strawberries, please. I’m still staring at the ballot on my kitchen counter. Si or no. It’s a simple question that isn’t simple at all, not the way it looks from here.

Up Front

On Dec. 4, Italian citizens will be waiting in their own seemingly endless lines to vote on a constitutional referendum, one that has been called the most important yes-or-no question asked in the country since the end of World War II. It’s a complicated choice, one that by Jelisa Castrodale involves changing the structure of its Senate, slashing the number of senators and deciding whether Prime Minister Matteo Renzi sticks around or stomps off in a huff. Basically, the outcome could decide whether Italy will have to wear its own “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt, the one with an oversized arrow pointing toward the United Kingdom’s Brexit and (sigh) our own Donald Trump. This vote could have drastic effects on Italy’s already struggling banks, on the future of the euro in the country and it could further empower the Five Star Movement (MS5), a political movement led by a wealthy comedian-turned-blogger who has a ridiculous hairstyle, little relevant experience and a few unflattering comparisons to World War II-era fascists. (Hey, that sounds familiar.) Prime Minister Renzi has threatened to resign if the no votes win and, since Italy’s next general election isn’t scheduled until 2018, its government could basically become the country’s Pinterest project as it tries to piece something together until then. I’ve just unfolded my own copy of the ballot on my kitchen counter, a bright pink sheet of paper with a pair of giant si and no boxes printed on the bottom half. It looks less like I’m about to vote on the strength and powers of Italy’s senate and more like the prime minister has slipped me a note before gym class. (Sorry, Matteo. I will not go to the Snowball Dance with you.) I stared at it until the letters started to blur, wondering whether I should actually tick one of the boxes because, from 4,700 miles away, it doesn’t feel like I’m part of a democratic republic: It feels like a page from a Choose Your Own Adventure book, one that doesn’t affect me any more than War With the Mutant Spider Ants did. I became an Italian citizen four years ago today, after spending a year-plus collecting birth, death and marriage certificates from my dad’s side of the family. Even though my dad — and my grandparents — were born in the United States, they could pass their own Italian citizenship to me through Italy’s “law of the soil” and “law of the blood,” which basically means that it’s my birthright to correct people’s pronunciation of bruschetta. In November 2012, after months and months that were measured in notary stamps, apostilles and awkward sounding Google Translations, I went to the Consulate General in Philadelphia to present all my documents and get either a si or no on my citizenship application. The official who opened the door and called my last name wasn’t what I’d imagined. First, she was wearing a pair of latex exam gloves, which made me wonder about the second half

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