Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point January 25 – 31, 2017 triad-city-beat.com
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D A I R T E H T F CITIZENS O GSO electoral activism PAGE 6
Farewell Phuzz PAGE 18
PAGE 12
Skate city PAGE 20
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January 25 – 31, 2017
Fake news pays the bills I swear to Christ if I ever bump into Cameron Harris I’m gonna shave off one of his eyebrows. Harris is the Davidson College by Brian Clarey grad outed by the New York Times last week as the auteur of a body of fake news that ran on his site christiantimesnewspaper.com. One of the stories he cooked, about “tens of thousands” of Hillary Clinton votes found in an Ohio warehouse in the days before the primary, was shared 6 million times. And if I ever see him out, I’m gonna throw a glass of water on the crotch of his pants. Because I was feeling pretty good about my profession in general before I read this story, and this newspaper in particular. We had just published Jordan Green’s investigative manifesto, nine months in the making, that not only named and quantified the biggest landlords in High Point but also laid out the historical groundwork, showing us all how things got to be this way. North Carolina Public Radio even invited him to be on “The State of Things” to discuss it Tuesday. It was a masterpiece, and did very well on our website, garnering thousands of pageviews on the first day alone, which through programmatic advertising on the
site passively earned us about $10, which I thought was not too shabby. Then I found out that Harris’ site took in more than $22,000 in the two months leading up to the election, largely on the strength of the Clinton story, which I want to remind you he completely cooked up; he said he wrote it in 15 minutes. He also told the Times that he tried crafting fake news geared towards Hillary supporters, but, they reported, “as other seekers of clicks discovered, Mr. Trump’s supporters were far more fervent than Mrs. Clinton’s.” This is actual fake news, not the kind that our president accuses CNN of peddling but actual lies, written with malice and forethought — until the story came to light, Harris was employed as a staffer for Maryland’s Republican state Sen. David E. Vogt III (and also living in the lawmaker’s basement, which is weird), though he has since been fired. And all of you dopes out there shared it 6 million times, lending so much weight to the lie that Snopes had to get involved, debunking it within a week. The Snopes correction was shared about 24,000 times, proving that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on, and also that people love BS and hate the truth. And that’s why, if I ever bump into Harris, I’m gonna have to give him a wedgie or something. Because in his disgusting $22,000 lie, he gave me a glimpse of the truth.
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
What I’ve found in Winston-Salem is that Winston-Salem is very much a craft-cocktail kind of town. Greensboro is your beer city — we’ve got breweries left and right and it’s just a beer-drinking town.
— Kris Fuller, in the Cover, page 12
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
EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg
jorge@triad-city-beat.com
dick@triad-city-beat.com
SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com
eric@triad-city-beat.com
SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green
CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Jelisa Castrodale
Stallone Frazier Anthony Harrison Matt Jones
Cover design by Jorge Maturino Triad City Beat celebrates citizens with feet in more than one city.
jordan@triad-city-beat.com
EDITORIAL INTERN Joel Sronce intern@triad-city-beat.com
TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2017 Beat Media Inc.
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January 25 – 31, 2017
CITY LIFE Jan. 25 – 31 by Joel Sronce
Playing January 27 – 30 YELLING AND PRIZES!
A live interactive game show -- with Yelling and Prizes! 10 p.m. Fri., Jan. 27. Tickets $6 (online) or $8 (at door)! OTHER SHOWS Open Mic 8:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 26. $5 tickets! Friday Night Standup! 8:30 p.m. Fri., Jan. 27 Tickets $8 (online) or $10 (at door)! Family Matinee Improv ALL AGES COMEDY! 4 p.m. Sat., Jan. 28. $6 Tickets! Saturday Night Improv 8:30 p.m. & 10 p.m. Sat., Jan. 28. Tickets $9 (online) or $10 (at door)! Monday Night Roast Battle! 8:30 p.m. Mon., Jan. 30 Tickets $5 (online) or $8 (at door)!
2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro idiotboxers.com • 336-274-2699
Playing Jan. 27 – Feb. 1
FREE Super Smash Bros Melee CASUAL TOURNAMENT!
Items On! Random Stages! We put the Party Back in Party Game! $50 Cash Prize! Free Entry! 5 p.m. Saturday, January 28
--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--
Board Game Night More than 100 Board & Card Games -- FREE TO PLAY! 7 p.m. on Every Friday!
Saturday Morning Cartoons
Great Cartoons! Free Admission! 10 a.m. & 10 p.m. Every Saturday!
Totally Rad Trivia! $3 buy in! Up to six player teams! Winners get CASH PRIZE! 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 31
Drink N’ Draw 6 p.m. Wednesday, February 1 All Artists of All Ages & Skill Levels are Welcome!
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Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee! 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •
336-355-7180
WEDNESDAY Kids Cooking Class @ Greensboro Children’s Museum (GSO), 3:30 p.m. The Edible Schoolyard teaches kids ages 6-8 how to prepare hearty granola bars, as well as how animals hibernate and how the museum’s garden works in winter. Registration and more info available at gcmuseum.com.
THURSDAY
Nature Through New Eyes @ New Winston Museum (W-S), 5:30 p.m. In a panel discussion, landscape architect Kristen Haaf introduces the idea of living in a “post-wild world.” Lindsey Schwab, Keith Huff and Cornelia Barr join the conversation to discuss examples of urban conservation and restoring decrepit industrial areas as centers of innovation. More info at newwinston.org. Redistricting reporting @ UNCG School of Education (GSO), 6 p.m. The League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad presents Ending Gerrymandering to Restore Democracy in NC: The Case for Nonpartisan Redistricting. The event discusses a plan created by a volunteer panel of retired NC Supreme Court justices and senior appellate court judges. More info at lwvpt.org. Rhiannon Giddens, Molly McGinn and Laurelyn Dossett @ Common Grounds (GSO), 7:30 p.m. Singers Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops, the New Basement Tapes), McGinn and Dossett merge their separate styles for a show that features some of Greensboro’s best local artists. It’s a big show at a small venue. More info at the Facebook event page.
FRIDAY
Consciousness Through Poetry @ North Star LGBTQ Center (W-S), 7 p.m. Consciousness Through Poetry provides a platform for beginning and experienced poets, storytellers and spoken-word artists to share their work in a non-judgmental space. The organization encourages all to come out to listen to and meet poets in the community. Bring cash for the Jamaican food provided. More info at the Facebook event page.
SATURDAY
Educational food demonstration @ Superior Foods Neighborhood Grocery Store (HP), 11 a.m. Chefs N’Gai and Andrew create a fun-filled food demo focused on community connection and spreading awareness about food systems and nutrition. More info at homegrownheroes.org.
SUNDAY
Sunday Salon Classics @ St. Mary’s Music Academy (HP), 3 p.m. The academy’s first concert of the year features award-winning artists Xin Gao on saxophone and Mengfei Xu on piano. The performance exemplifies the desire of St. Mary’s Music Academy to contribute to and enrich the musical environment of the greater Piedmont Triad. More info at stmarysmusicacademy.org.
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A downtown bulletin board for fliers by Jordan Green
6. It’s still happening As of Monday, the movement seems to be continuing through social media, and there’s already a website, womensmarch.com, outlining a campaign for the next 100 days.
All She Wrote
3. The celebs Only something of this magnitude could bring Madonna and Cher together — an Instagram photo shows the two of them sharing a moment backstage at the DC rally. Janelle Monae, Scarlett Johansson and Katy Perry addressed the
Shot in the Triad
5. The power Before they even had the right to vote, American women provided the muscle behind Prohibition, enacted in 1919, and then carried that momentum until the 19th Amendment granted women the full rights of citizenship — on paper, anyway — a year later. Women are a major political force in this country and have shown they can affect big changes. I’m eager to see what’s next.
Crossword
2. The hats The pink toboggan with kitty-cat ears became an instantly recognizable identifier among the protesters, signifying defiance of the president and his grabby ways. And while it’s likely that stores are full of the pink pussy hat by now, just about all of the hats worn at the Women’s March were handmade, knitted by legions of supporters in a neat sociological twist that managed to both reject commercialism and embrace the crafting movement.
4. Social media The entire movement grew out of a Facebook group — like the Arab Spring before it. Patterns for the pussy hat were shared through social networks; chat rooms and IMs scheduled IRL meet-ups for the likeminded; every moment and angle of it was documented through Facebook, Snap, Insta and whatever else the kids are using. I was particularly moved by an a capella group comprised of women from different cities who learned an original song and rehearsed together online before creating guerilla flashmobs on the National Mall. Check out icantkeepquiet.org to see what I mean.
Sportsball
crowd, while social media found Lena Dunham, Amy Poehler, Julia Roberts, the Gyllenhaals and other A-listers in the streets.
Culture
1. The numbers Last weekend, a record number of Americans — the overwhelming majority of them women — took to the streets in big cities, small towns and everywhere in between in a sort of blanket protest of our new president and what he stands for. The numbers alone are staggering: Los Angeles and Washington DC hosted the biggest crowds with low estimates of half a million apiece; there were at least 400,000 in New York City, 250,000 in Chicago, 200,000 in Denver and another 175,000 in Boston, based on the low-end estimates of attendance numbers. In all, almost 4 million took to the streets on Jan. 21 — one in every 100 Americans. It may have been the largest single-day protest in American history — the numbers are still rolling in.
Cover Story
by Brian Clarey
by Joel Sronce Trump’s America. It’s the first time we’ve run a piece for this theme since the words became all the more true, cut all the more deep. To many at his inauguration, Trump seemed to be what he was to a group of four supporters who carried around a life-size cardboard cutout of the man being sworn in as POTUS less than a mile away —a First Place ribbon, a trophy by which to pose. No more real than the head of a taxidermied buck killed and mounted in time forgotten, yet which hangs ceremoniously in the living room. All the violence and blood of the act that brought it there, that executes its permanence, ignored or abandoned. What will the fate of that cutout be? Perhaps thrown out of a Chevy bound from DC to Chattanooga, or Columbus or Albany. Or left in the capital, urinated on and carted off to a landfill. Or taken home and mounted on the beach, his painted eyes motionless as pale, shirtless young men throw beanbags into holes cut into wooden planks, until they are too drunk to notice their leader has fallen down, been blown into the water and is floating out to inconceivable ends across the sea. In a shameful irony, I noticed that some of the people at the inauguration selling Trump shirts, hats and signs were African, or immigrants from other lands doomed to this occupation by our unforgiving system of government. And what will their fates be, these people, these workers who do their best to do the right thing, to follow the rules and in doing so grossly attire an inconsiderate crowd to salute a disgraceful man? What will their fate be, our poor, our masses yearning to be free, who we have so calmly abandoned? Will they be shipped away from this home to lands they have worked so hard and come so far to forget? Will they stand on the shores of other continents, looking to the distant days of capitalist humiliation and the selling of horrible hats to the willfully ignorant masses? What stories will they have for their families, if they’re ever able to find them? What story will you have for your family, when upon that foreign shore arrives a cardboard figure, having so impressively labored through the seas to crash his mass upon further lands, bodies, opportunity, greatness?
Opinion
6 impressive things about the Women’s March
The cutout fate
News
ual initiative rather than committee — Garcia has volunteered to talk to Jason Thiel, the partnership’s president, about easing restrictions on downtown fliering. In a Facebook chat on Tuesday, Garcia acknowledged that a centrally located public space for fliers would be nice. In the meantime, Garcia posted an incredibly helpful list of 27 locations in and around downtown that allow fliering, including college campuses, coffee houses, bars, restaurants and bookstores, on the new Winston-Salem Music Facebook page. Thiel told Triad City Beat on Tuesday that he looks forward to working with the musicians to provide more places to post fliers. “We have a kiosk on Fourth Street that we would put posters that people would bring to us,” he said. “We had another one down near Winston Square Park that was recently destroyed by a drunk driver, sadly, and then there’s one on Trade Street because it got out of disrepair. “We’re always open to that idea of having a central location for having a central location,” he added. “I think that’s a great idea.” Once people start talking, you never know what can happen.
Up Front
“Sound Ecology,” the massively well-attended public forum on the health of Winston-Salem’s music scene, took place in early January right around the time the retirement of Phuzz Phest [see story on page 18] was announced. The conversation spun off at least one really good idea that should be easily doable. Among the musicians and promoters in the room, several people complained that there’s nowhere to post fliers for upcoming shows. I personally thought fliers were a relic of the ’80s that had been consigned to oblivion as a tool for promoting shows by email listservs in the ’90s, but what do I know? Eddie Garcia, a veteran of the music scene (1970s Film Stock, formerly Jews & Catholics) and a producer at WFDD, noted during the forum that instead of railing at the man when your fliers are torn down, it’s often more effective to reach out to city leaders and explain your challenge. You can’t blame them for not understanding your issue if you’ve never made it a point to introduce yourself, and as often as not they’ll want to help when you fill them in. In Winston-Salem, the city outsources a lot of decisions about the regulation of public space in downtown to the non-profit Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership. It’s good to know who does what. True to the way most things get done — that is, by individ-
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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NEWS
Disappointed Bernie supporters join forces with police reformers by Jordan Green A new group pledging to back progressive city council candidates joins forces with the movement for police accountability in Greensboro. A grassroots movement for police accountability and electoral organizing collided during a community meeting last week at the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro. The Police Accountability Community Safety and Healing Initiative, or PACSHI, has been meeting for at least three Bill Hurd of Democracy Greensboro pitches people on an effort promote progressive candidates. years to address the abuse of police power by advocating him to the floor while Yourse sat on his a police review board with mother’s front porch in a well-to-do subpoena power and pushing for public neighborhood in southwest Greensboro. access to police body-camera video. Cole resigned amid two investigations, Democracy Greensboro began as an one internal and one criminal, but informal gathering of people, many of the Guilford County District Attorney them Bernie Sanders supporters, who declined to prosecute him. started meeting for coffee and bagels at Police reform advocates in GreensGlenwood Community Book Shop to boro have questioned why so much time talk about how to advance a progressive elapsed between the June 17 incident agenda after their candidate conceded and Aug. 9, when Chief Wayne Scott the Democratic primary to Hillary allegedly learned about it, and have Clinton. Formerly known as the Nov. 9 sought access to investigative files to Ad Hoc Committee, the group has been understand whether officers in the chain quietly discussing plans back progresof command responded appropriately sive candidates in the Greensboro City to Cole’s use of force. Council election later this year. During a meeting in October, city The two groups had scheduled meetcouncil voted 5-4 to not review the ings for the same night, but Democracy files in closed session, turning down Greensboro ended up canceling their a request by District 1 Councilwommeeting so they could show up for an Sharon Hightower to look at the PACSHI’s twice-monthly confab. The documents. Voting to keep the files Rev. Nelson Johnson and NC A&T closed were at-large council members University student Nhawndie Smith Mike Barber and Marikay Abuzuaiter, co-facilitated a discussion about the imDistrict 3 Councilman Justin Outling, pact of Trump’s election on the moveDistrict 4 Councilwoman Nancy Hoffment for police reform and PACSHI’s mann and District 5 Councilman Tony objectives for the new year. Then they Wilkins. turned the meeting over to Democracy Hightower’s colleagues eventually Greensboro. relented and allowed her to review The electoral organizing group the files, but in December a motion came with some immediate credibility by Hightower to publicly release the for the police reform advocates. One files failed in a 7-2 vote. Mayor Nancy of its members, Gary Kenton, had Vaughan and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne been arrested the day before in a civil Johnson joined the vote against disclodisobedience to protest the city’s refusal sure. District 2 Councilman Jamal Fox to release internal investigative docustood with Hightower in support of ments related to an altercation between releasing the files. former police Officer Travis Cole and On Jan. 18, Kenton and six other Greensboro resident Dejuan Yourse. Greensboro residents were arrested City council voted in September to for second-degree trespassing while release police body-camera video that demanding the release of the files at the showed Cole, who is white, punching city manager’s office. The action was Yourse, who is black, and then throwing
carried out by GSO Operation Transparency, a separate police reform group. Bill Hurd, a member of Democracy Greensboro who co-owns Glenwood Community Book Shop, said their group started with a broad goal of electing a more progressive city council, but the split on council over release JORDAN GREEN of the investigative files provided them with an effective litmus test. “We wanted to start a movement to change city council,” Hurd said. “The city council did us a favor of giving us a list of five to four. Now, it’s seven to two. We don’t actually know if we can replace seven council members. Some council members may be more vulnerable than others. We have to find candidates, or candidates have to find us.” Hurd said he’s in the process of getting Democracy Greensboro certified as a political action committee so it can raise and spend money to support candidates. While transparency has become Democracy Greensboro’s primary issue, Hurd said the group also favors free public transportation and broadband access. The group is eying the District 5 seat occupied by Tony Wilkins, the sole Republican on the nine-member body. Michael Roberto, a Democracy Greensboro member who recently retired as a professor at NC A&T University, said the district “has a large Latino population that is not represented and has never been represented.” Kenton said after the meeting that even if Democracy Greensboro fails to win seats, running candidates should at least have the effect of influencing more moderate incumbents. “The sprint is to get some new faces on city council,” he said. “At the very least, we’d like to put some pressure on Marikay Abuzuaiter and Nancy Hoffmann from the left so they’re not just worried about their opposition on the right.” Hurd acknowledged a risk that by targeting a candidate like Abuzuaiter, who
is progressive on most issues but tends to take more conservative positions on matters involving the police department, the effort could inadvertently provide an opening for a more conservative candidate to flip the seat. But he said the group hasn’t reached the stage where it’s ready to make those kinds of tactical calls. “It may be that we only have three viable candidates,” Hurd said, exploring a hypothetical. “Maybe we want to run somebody against Barber, but we can’t find anyone who wants to do that.” Lewis Pitts, a member of PACSHI who has also attended the Democracy Greensboro meetings, cautioned that most of the people involved with the electioneering group are older, white men, echoing an acknowledgement by many members that Democracy Greensboro needs to become more diverse to effectively drive citywide change. (Almost half of the people who identified themselves as members of Democracy Greensboro at the meeting were, in fact, white women, so the group appears to have diversified across gender, if not color lines.) Hurd said Democracy Greensboro plans to canvas public housing communities to find out what issues residents think are important, and the group will hold its first meeting outside of Glenwood Community Book Shop at McGirt-Horton Library in northeast Greensboro on Feb. 2. The members of PACSHI gave a relatively warm reception to Democracy Greensboro’s proposal for electoral mobilization. Johnson said the inauguration of Donald Trump presents progressives with a “historic moment.” “The energy is produced by the obvious oppression,” he said. “I think this is an unusual moment and we have to throw ourselves into it with energy and resolve.” Several people in the meeting argued that now that Republicans have a lock on the federal government and largely still control the state government in Raleigh, cities are in a unique position to set the standard for progressive public policy. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had as good a possibility to put in a people’s platform,” Pitts said. “Now is the time for cities to come up.”
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Up Front
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball
by Jordan Green
Longtime members of the High Point Preservation Society are reviving the organization to take on some urgent projects while celebrating a Chicago furniture magnate’s renovation of a historic mansion as a hospitality center. Jim Morgan, a lawyer and former state lawmaker with a legendary résumé of community leadership, stood in the staircase at the Pandora’s Manor bed & breakfast, and declared the resurrection of the High Point Preservation Society. “We need to kind of revive and get going,” he said during a re-launch soiree on Monday. Co-founded by Morgan in 1984, the historic preservation society has accomplished some impressive feats, including raising money to preserve and renovate the Depot, which was built by the Southern Railway in 1907, and saving the Ray Street School (also known as the Little Red Schoolhouse), but the organization is in need of reactivation. “High Point is at a crossroads,” said Benjamin Briggs, a native and longtime resident of the city who serves as executive director of Preservation Greensboro [see story on page 15]. “We’re trying to encourage reinvestment in our historic buildings.” Briggs introduced a slate of new members of the organization’s board of directors, with Morgan as its chair, himself as president and Coralle Cowan as secretary, along with documentary filmmaker Phyllis Bridges, Southwest Renewal Foundation Executive Director Dorothy Darr, Gloria Halstead, Mary Powell DeLille and Bill Phillips. Morgan said there were four additional seats on the board, but no one at the reception volunteered. Then the guests, who had been plied with wine and beer, approved the new board members by acclamation.
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Preservation society reboots, celebrates renovated B&B
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Community leader Jim Morgan announces a reboot of the High Point Preservation Society at Pandora’s Manor on Monday.
Board members, who have already been working on their own, have a couple urgent projects to tackle with the reactivated organization, but they also wanted to highlight the host venue as an example of the kind of preservation that will inject new vitality into the city. The bed and breakfast was purchased in February 2016 by Ridvan Tatargil, owner of the Chicago-based linen manufacturer Eastern Accents, which exhibits at the nearby Suites at Market Square. Tatargil is renovating the 1905 mansion, built by Myrtle Desk Co. founder Henry Frazier, and has acquired part of a block bounded by West High Avenue, Oak Street and West Green Drive with plans for redevelopment. The first phase, which is scheduled to be complete in time for the spring furniture market in late April, includes a new grand entrance at the rear of the house adjacent to an outdoor event area and equipped with a kitchen and restrooms. The bed and breakfast will accommodate up to 12 guests, with a restaurant serving lunch and dinner that will be open to the public. Tatargil was not present for the relaunch, but Justin Gold-Smith, who recently moved from Houston to High Point with his husband Baker GoldSmith to manage the bed and breakfast, spoke on his behalf at the event. “Ridvan dreams big,” Justin GoldSmith said. The collection of properties acquired by Tatargil includes an old biker bar at the corner of West Green
JORDAN GREEN
Drive and Oak Street. Gold-Smith said Tatargil will turn his attention to that project after completing renovations at the bed and breakfast. “His vision is to create a restaurant, bar, maybe a brewpub to revitalize the area with services for people in the area,” Gold-Smith said. The group of properties under redevelopment by Tatargil is part of a transitional area between the gracious String & Splinter city club and the Market Square Towers condos to the east and a declining industrial area to the southwest. Tatargil’s properties are part of 1,096-acre area identified by UNCG’s Center for Housing & Community Studies as the poorest in the city, which sweeps through the central business district. The Census tract that covers most of the southwest quadrant where Pandora’s Manor is located includes some of the most stunning furniture showrooms, including Market Square, the Commerce & Design Building and Natuzzi Americas, which is designed to resemble a ship, along with some of the city’s areas of most acute economic distress, with a poverty rate of 43.4 percent and median family income of $23,919. The outlying areas of the southwest quadrant also include the historic Pickett Cotton Mill and Highland Cotton Mill, which have been repurposed by furniture-makers BuzziSpace and Cisco Brothers respectively. “This is a fantastic example of what
we’d like to see replicated all over town,” Briggs said of Pandora’s Manor. “Increase our tax base. Think of all the jobs in this building. Think of the people that visit High Point — they spend money when they stay in this house. So we want more of that; we want more reinvestment in our city.” Briggs cited the preservation societies in Greensboro, Durham, Hickory and Salisbury as models for what the revamped High Point Preservation Society should try to achieve. “And they do innovative things,” he said. “They have walking tours in historic neighborhoods. They invest in revolving funds or a corpus of money that can be raised through private donations and invested in the building and then sold back to the private sector and the money comes back and revolves. You can then use it for another project. These are all tools that we need in our High Point toolkit.” Briggs said High Point holds a rich architectural and historical legacy, citing the John Haley House, the city’s oldest structure dating back to 1786; the Model Farm, established by Quakers from Baltimore after the Civil War to teach advanced farming techniques; and the mill village surrounding Highland Cotton Mill as examples. “We have so much to be proud of,” he said. “We are second to no city in this state for historic resources.” Cowan, the board’s new secretary, said she would like to see the preservation society save the Carter Dalton House, an early example of craftsman-style architecture on Johnson Street that was devastated by fire in January 2013. The planning staff at the city of High Point has recommended the house for demolition in part because the current owners lack the resources to reconstruct it. Some members of the preservation society are also interested in saving a 1925 brick gatehouse built as an office and records repository for the Oakwood Cemetery. Residents persuaded the city to take ownership of the building, but board member Bill Phillips said city officials are now talking about tearing it down. “Now we want to save the building,” Phillips said, “and the deputy city manager gave me six months to come up with a plan.”
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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OPINION
EDITORIAL
More sunlight, please It’s hard to look away from the events in Washington DC as a new president asserts himself as a presence equally hostile to establishment politicians, media, ethics experts and whomever is responsible for counting crowds on the National Mall. Raleigh, too, has its share of strife as a new legislature prepares to be seated against a new governor who doesn’t share its mentality. But this week we turn homeward to Greensboro, where during odd-numbered years city council members start asserting their agendas right about now. The earliest player in the game is Sharon Hightower of District 1, who has aligned herself with a group calling itself GSO Operation Transparency, the purpose of which is to unearth documents that might shed more light on the Dejuan Yourse/Travis Cole situation. A refresher: Councilmembers, with encouragement from Chief Wayne Scott, voted to release body-cam footage of Officer Cole strong-arming Yourse, who at the time was sitting on his mother’s front porch. Cole resigned from the force, and so did his partner, who left in the wake of the publicity. Charges were dropped against Yourse, and no doubt a civil suit is in the works — the last time Cole roughed up a citizen, it cost the city $50,000. After council voted 7-2 against releasing the documentation, police arrested seven members of the transparency group for civil disobedience last week during a demonstration in Melvin Municipal Building (including Lamar Gibson, who’s sold advertising for TCB in the past). Now Hightower, who has seen the documents in question, must either keep pushing or move onto the next battle and hope her constituency stands with her. A new group called Democracy Greensboro that’s aligned with the Police Accountability Community Safety & Healing Initiative — a Beloved Community Center-adjacent project — is vowing to find candidates to run against councilmembers opposed to such transparency efforts. They might begin with conservative District 5 Councilman Tony Wilkins in southwest Greensboro, or with on-again-off-again progressive at-large Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter. (Read more on page 8.) We’re not going to weigh in on the wisdom of such challenges just yet, but we’re happy to assert — again — that we stand by calls for the documents in the Yourse case to be released. Transparency is a hallmark of good government, and we’ll remind Mayor Nancy Vaughan that it’s part of the platform she ran on for mayor. We are believers in the old adage that sunlight is the best disinfectant. While several councilmembers patted themselves on the back for being transparent when releasing the Yourse tape, there is no sound logical argument we’ve heard yet for refusing to provide the documents that GSO Operation Transparency seeks. We want to see them, too.
CITIZEN GREEN
The fiction in Trump’s promises to the ‘forgotten’ “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” President Trump pledged during his inauguration speech. Americans want “great schools for their children, safe neighby Jordan Green borhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves,” Trump said, adding that too many live a different reality. The litany that followed gave first mention to “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities,” followed by a nod to his primary constituency, as he talked about “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.” Put aside for a moment his contemptuous dismissal of “an education system flush with cash” — an obvious plug for charter schools — and his reference to “the crime and gangs and drugs” — given historically low crime rates, it’s a racially-coded appeal for heavy-handed law enforcement in the very same “inner cities” and other areas populated by people of color. Considering that the plight of urban America virtually disappeared from Trump’s speeches between Election Day and his inauguration as he appointed a parade of plutocrats to his cabinet, it would be naïve to think for a second that the president has any intention of helping the urban poor. If we take anything away from press secretary Sean Spicer’s claim against all available evidence that “this was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration” — endorsed as “alternative facts” in senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway’s Orwellian phrasing — it’s that the administration will soon be declaring a new era of prosperity in the face of abundant evidence that conditions are in fact becoming worse for the poor. Social critics from Masha Gessen and Ned Resnikoff to Henry A. Giroux and David A. Graham have observed that when Trump, like Vladimir Putin — the Russian leader he so admires — lies flagrantly about mundane matters that are easily refuted, he’s not doing so because he thinks he won’t get caught, but to assert his supremacy over the facts. He’s making a point that the facts don’t matter. The administration’s attack on the media, on display at both the president’s visit to the CIA and Spicer’s press briefing on Jan. 21, is a calculated effort to bewilder the public and ultimately promote a collapse of critical engagement. That’s why it’s essential to lay down and defend a baseline of facts against which to assess the spectacle of distraction created by the first reality-television presidency — and yes, the irony of that coinage is fully intended. The first signal of the administration’s actual policy with regard to urban America and the poor came only
an hour after the new president was inaugurated, when the Department of Housing & Urban Development reversed an Obama administration rate cut for mortgage insurance for Federal Housing Administration-backed loans. Mortgage insurance is an onerous added expense for first-time homebuyers who can’t afford a significant down payment or who carry a history of poor credit, and denying them relief is likely to put them more at risk for foreclosure and prevent them from saving money for crucial home repairs and other investments that build wealth. Notwithstanding his inspiring biography as a child who grew up in public housing in Detroit to become a renowned neurosurgeon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of housing and urban development has mostly distinguished himself as a critic of the agency he hopes to lead. Dr. Ben Carson assailed a HUD rule requiring municipalities to “affirmatively further” racial desegregation in housing in a July 2015 op-ed article in the conservative Washington Times. “The new rule would not only condition the grant of HUD funds to municipalities on building affordable housing as is the case today, but would require that such affordable housing be built primarily in wealthier neighborhoods with few current minority residents and that the new housing be aggressively marketed to minorities,” he wrote. “In practice, the rule would fundamentally change the nature of some communities from primarily single-family to largely apartment-based areas by encouraging municipalities to strike down housing ordinances that have no overtly (or even intended) discriminatory purpose — including race-neutral zoning restrictions on lot size and limits on multi-unit dwellings, all in the name of promoting diversity.” Carson walked back his opposition somewhat during his Jan. 12 confirmation hearing, saying, “I don’t have any problem whatsoever with affirmative action or at least integration; I have no problem with that at all. But I do have a problem with people on high dictating it when they don’t know anything about what’s going on in the area.” If Carson revealed anything about how he’ll run HUD, it’s that he’ll be a hands-off secretary, largely entrusting local municipalities and housing authorities to decide how to spend federal funds, whether they reinforce longstanding patterns of inequality or not. Maybe Carson, the critic of big government, never expected to be running it. Or maybe he was being prophetic when he concluded in the Washington Times: “There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.”
Separate journeys reach the inauguration
darkness, sprinkled with the red of passing cars and the distant fires of industry. When this night ended I knew Robby wouldn’t warily witness a slow and stunning dawn, as I had done the morning before; instead he would wake blinking into an already bright, alarming morning, one like every other, its demands and demons established eternities ago. His aunt was glad he was there, and so was he. And so was I. Tens of thousands claim to have stood with him — millions, even, across the country. He’s here — we all are — because we need to understand. Joel Sronce is TCB’s editorial intern.
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In these moments the circumstances around us seemed weightless, even funny — the ease with which we might welcome a young person’s understanding of the world. Keith Lamont Scott. “Faggot.” After the last toss I was mostly separated from Robby for the rest of the day, though I remember a fist-bump goodbye before I left to take the bus home and he remained in DC for the Women’s March the following morning. I’m not sure if I’ll see him again, but I am sure I will never be able to relate to the experiences he endures for the rest of our terribly separate lives. As we stood together in DC to resist the most recent revolting head of state to rise from a system heretofore against him, I wished this were a harbinger of the promising future for this young boy of color in The US. But it’s far from his truth. There is too much of history, too much of the present already striving to hold him down. The bus ride home was quiet, none of us having slept much on the road the night before. I looked out into the starless
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holding a large banner with other members of our group. I asked Robby’s aunt, Leah Hendershot, how she thought Robby felt about being in DC. “He’s excited because there are so many people,” she said. “But there’s anxiety and fear, too.” Hendershot had taken the boys to Charlotte during the protests that followed the murder of Keith Lamont Scott. She said Robby remembers the tear gas and riot techniques that police used against the protesters. This morning he had asked his aunt about the chance of a similar incident occurring in DC. She said she brings them because they need to understand. “We’re only as strong as we are heard,” she explained. “And we’re a part of history.” Soon after this conversation, we heard a passerby say to this 11-year-old kid holding his rainbow “Stop Bigotry” sign: “Faggot.” Faggot. To the 11-year old kid. For much of the day the boys enjoyed themselves the way they would enjoy any day away from home. As the march ended and the rally in McPherson Square began, Robby and his cousin tossed around a pink rubber ball, and soon we were all battling for catches and showing off. Often the ball would bounce into strangers — armed members of the National Guard or black-clothed anarchists wearing dark bandanas and brandishing dark flags — and the boys ran right to them, beaming and apologetic.
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Just before 6 a.m. on inauguration morning, northbound near the Po River crossing in central Virby Joel Sronce ginia, I exited the shotgun seat of our large passenger van and climbed in the driver’s door of another while the travelers within slept. More than 50 of us — activists from the Triad led by the Greensboro branch of the International Socialist Organization — had gathered in Greensboro on the first hours of Friday, Jan. 20. By 2 a.m. we had boarded a bus and three vans, each equipped with food, signs and overnight supplies, then rolled off into the night. Some hours later, in the rearview mirror as the dawn came, I glimpsed a boy sleeping restfully as I sped us through the darkness to the capitol. Robby Williams, a lanky 11-year-old person of color, had covered himself with a sleeping bag, only his head visible above its top. His 9-year-old cousin and his aunt slept beside him. Nearing the city, I watched alone as a gorgeous sun rose over Washington, DC, its beauty an impossible grace against the caustic events of the day. Finally the boy woke, quickly amazed by the monuments, flummoxed by the military hummers, the traffic and the curses from the adults inside the van. Later, as we waited with a fool’s hope to enter the checkpoint, the inauguration ceremony unfolding on a television through a restaurant window, Robby and his cousin were conversing eagerly,
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Tange Lomax: Spitfire rapper Lives in: High Point Performs: all over
Kris Fuller: The Wandering Chef Lives in: Greensboro Works: Triad-wide
Tange Lomax, a spitfire rapper who balances grit with a transcendent sense of melody, is based in High Point, but two of her closest allies work out of Greensboro. She considers it a boost to have Greensboro rapper JK the Reaper do a guest spot on the aptly named “Breakthrough,” a track on her most recent album Free Spirit. “He has gone on tour, so he’s ahead of a lot of artists,” Lomax says. “He’s where a lot of us want to be. To have him collab on the album is an inspiration.” Anthony Childress of Greensboro is also a vital part of Lomax’s support network. “Someone I consider my brother is starting to try to help more North Carolina artists get exposure,” Lomax says, referring to Childress. “He’s putting together a mixtape to highlight different North Carolina artists. I call him my ‘road manager.’ He’s there at all my shows.” She’s a regular feature on the Black 2 Hip Hop showcase, which marks its fourth year on Feb. 11 at the Blind Tiger in Greensboro, and she’s also performed at Urban Grinders and Greene Street in the Gate City. Lomax made some inroads in Winston-Salem too, with spots at Phuzz Phest and the Stand Against HB 2 concert last year. Aside from recording demos at home and trying to encourage a few local artists, her activities in her hometown of High Point are relatively limited. Lomax is definitely a citizen of the Triad, but don’t let that designation give you the wrong impression. Being a successful hip-hop artist requires the cultivation of a network of relationships with fellow emcees, producers and promoters that extends statewide. Charlotte, where Lomax got her start and where
Chef Kris Fuller cuts a conspicuous presence on the floor of Crafted: The Art of the Taco at its Winston-Salem location on Liberty Street: Seating customers, busing tables, scanning the dining room and kitchen. It’s just past lunch with half the tables still going and a few groups coming sporadically through the door. “It’s been a whirlwind,” she says, referring to the recent opening of the place — the third brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Crafted food chain that also includes a food truck and a consulting arm of the business. “The amount of support that Winston-Salem has shown us in the first 60 days is overwhelming. I can’t even explain the amount of gratitude I have for this city.” The Camel City location, she says, may be a little larger, and with a more open floor plan, but things on the taco side of the business are much the same as at the flagship location in the Gate City. It’s at the bar where she sees the difference. “What I’ve found in Winston-Salem is that Winston-Salem is very much a craft-cocktail kind of town,” she says. “Greensboro is your beer city — we’ve got breweries left and right and it’s just a beer-drinking town. “In Winston-Salem,” she continues, “though they appreciate their craft beer, they really appreciate their craft cocktails; we’re really seeing it in the craft cocktail sales.” About the difficulties of opening a restaurant in Forsyth County as opposed to Guilford, she’s decidedly thoughtful.
Tange Lomax
she’s recording her forthcoming album, The Real Me, can’t be counted out of her story. A Charlotte rapper named Schyler Chaise reached out to Lomax after discovering her on YouTube, and the rest is history. “He invited me out,” Lomax recalls. “His manager became my manager. That’s how I ended up doing shows in Charlotte. That’s how I did my first album. People thought I was from Charlotte.” Currently, Lomax is recording and performing with a cohort of artists and hip-hop collectives from across North Carolina. The configuration is mutually beneficial because it gives the artists the opportunity to share billing and get access to new fans across the state.
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“It’s a collective called Bake City, it’s a collective called House of Rebels, it’s a collective called Nomad Staff,” Lomax explained. “It’s artists called Seers, Josh Jones, Anthony Childress, basically people from across the state. Nomad Staff, they’re from the Asheville-Boone area. Seers is from Brevard. Josh Jones is from Greensboro. I’m from High Point.” Lomax is excited about releasing her new album in March or April. “It’s sounding really groovy as well as not losing the elements of rap and hip hop,” she says. “I’m trying to find that balance between melody and lyrics. It’s coming together. I think people are going to love it.” — JG
It’s an ugly truth, one that you might find a little bit disturbing to your sense of place, your sense of worth, your sense of self. Everybody does, once I tell them. Unless they already know it. And deep down, we all know it. That ugly truth is this: No one cares about a city of 300,000 people. Yes, 300,000 sounds like a lot of people. But really, it’s not. It’s not enough people to move the needle, demographically speaking, not enough to attract any sort of national attention, not enough economic activity to lure a bigleague sports franchise or even a Trader Joe’s. Even the Census cuts off its pullout list of the biggest US cities at the 300,000 population mark, which is why none of the cities of the Triad are on it. Yep, Greensboro weighs in at just about
Kris Fuller
BRIAN CLAREY
“I felt like the permitting process was easier in Winston-Salem than we had experienced with the city of Greensboro,” she says. “But also Winston-Salem felt easier and smoother because we learned lessons from the past three restaurants that we’ve opened, so with each new one it gets just a little easier.” A few of her key employees have made the move from Greensboro to Winston-Salem to help open the shop, “so they could truly be ‘local,’” she says, “and so they would be nearby in case they were needed.” She loves downtown Winston-Salem — coffee at Krankies and Camino, drinks at Single Brothers and Silver Moon, food at Willow’s and Finnegan’s Wake. “I’m a big fan of Slappy’s Chicken,” she adds. The Liberty Street location, she says, was chosen very carefully. “The National Cycling Center, the art park and building, Camel City BBQ and the new barcade,” she says,
285,000 people — No. 68 on the population list. Winston-Salem, Trader Joe’s notwithstanding, has just under 250,000. And don’t even get me started on High Point, where just 110,000 souls lay their heads each night. High Point is only slightly more populated than Billings, Mont. But then these numbers start to add up. Throw in Kernersville, Jamestown, Summerfield and all the rest of the land that lays between our three cities, and all of a sudden we have a what is known in the business as a combined statistical area of almost 1 million people — the 33rd largest in the country with 15 colleges and universities, a slate of blue-chip companies and a sophisticated network of highways to connect us. Taken together, the Triad matters. But sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it seems that Greensboro
rattling off the most recent projects on the street. “We’re gonna start to see these old storefronts come to life.” It’s a similar situation to Crafted: The Art of Street Food in Greensboro, which came into a recently activated spot across from Deep Roots Market along with Preyer Brewing, and later joined by Joymongers Brewing. “It’s hard to come into an already established area that’s blowing [up] and going and to try to be the new kid on the block when everybody else is already doing their thing,” she says. “We like to look at areas that, if you talk to enough locals, they know the up-and-coming areas. When we opened Street Food, we looked at the ballpark, the apartments, the greenway, the hotel coming up the street. There was enough happening to take a leap of faith. Liberty Street is the same way. This is what’s next in Winston-Salem.” But Fuller keeps her apartment in downtown Greensboro, which she shares with her wife Rachel Walker — who works at Common Giant in Winston-Salem and is a previous Citizen of the Triad notable. “Our home base is Greensboro,” she says. “I grew up mostly in Greensboro. I love Greensboro. I love Winston-Salem, but Greensboro is my home base, man.” She finds the commute on Business 40 — performed during off-peak restaurant hours, to be painless. “I don’t mind traveling,” she says. “I kind of like the drive. My drive to Winston-Salem is that one time of the day I can sit in silence if I want to.” — BC
culturati are more likely to drive to Chapel Hill for a night’s entertainment than Winston-Salem, practically right next door. And good luck getting a native Winston-Salemite to head east for half an hour. That’s changing. As the Triad develops and the demographics swing, the short distances between our cities become more traveled — for work, for love, for art and sometimes just for the hell of it. Since its inception, Triad City Beat has worked to create connective tissue between the cities we cover. And once a year we acknowledge those others who brave Business 40 and the Sandy Ridge Curtain, the ones who know the awful truth like we do, and even embrace it. The numbers don’t lie. There is only one Triad; we’re all just living in it. – BC
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Doug Clark: Opinion journalist Lives in: High Point Works in: Greensboro Doug Clark had worked at the High Point Enterprise for more than 15 years when he received an offer to write for the editorial page at the Greensboro News & Record in 2004. His wife was teaching at Central Davidson Middle School in Lexington at the time, and they decided to stay in High Point to split the difference. Logistically, Clark doesn’t consider it a big deal to live in High Point and work in Greensboro. There’s usually not much traffic on his morning commute, which takes Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to Business 85 and Interstate 85, and then to Highway 220/ Randleman Road, which delivers him to the office in downtown Greensboro. Psychologically, he said, the gap between the two cities has widened over the past 13 years. “When I first came here in 2004, the News & Record was providing a lot of High Point news coverage and we had a larger editorial staff, and it was really advantageous to have a High Point guy on the editorial staff,” Clark said. “Since then, things have changed and we don’t do a lot of High Point coverage.” Now that Clark’s wife has retired from teaching, they’re thinking about moving to Greensboro. They’re interested in living downtown, but with the possibility that the News & Record might sell its building, the couple has put their plans on hold to see how things shake out. Clark acknowledges there’s a certain appeal to being part of the zeitgeist in the city where his newspaper is located.
Doug Clark
COURTESY
“If you’re in a community all the time you know it much better and you get involved,” he said. Notwithstanding their possible move to Greensboro, Clark says the couple has important ties to their church and friends in High Point. “I don’t want to be harsh in any way, but I do see that Greensboro really has some vitality that High Point doesn’t,” Clark said. “It’s not your usual city. A lot of that has to do with the furniture market. You just can’t have a downtown like Greensboro, Winston-Salem or Durham because of the furniture market. That’s one of the things that makes a city a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong: I really like High Point. It was a great place to raise our kids. It certainly has a better handle on some problems like crime than Greensboro does, but in terms of where you’d want to spend a weekend, there’s not much to choose between.” — JG
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Tim Tsujii: Elected to split difference Works in: Winston-Salem Lives in: Kernersville
Hailey Moses: The uprooted gardener Lives in: Winston-Salem Works in: Greensboro
Call it the “Kernersville Solution.” When Tim Tsujii, Greensboro born and raised, took the job as elections director for Forsyth County last year, he knew there would have to be some changes. His wife Nikki still worked in Greensboro, for one, at Adams Farm Living & Rehabilitation, and they have a daughter in Guilford County Schools and another about to start. “I did think about [moving to] Winston-Salem,” COURTESY Tim Tsujii and family Tsujii said, “but after discussing the for her to attend public school there girls’ school and the for the year, just for the year to ease commute….” He sighed just a little. her transition to a school in Forsyth Though he graduated from County.” Western Guilford High School, Tsujii Ironically, since moving to Forsyth was no stranger to the Camel City. over the summer, he and his wife He and Nikki, who began dating in spend more time in Greensboro their teens, would go to shows at than they do Winston-Salem, both in the old Ziggy’s on Baity Street, and downtown spots and in the Adams while he was a student at George Farm area where they used to live. Washington University in the nation’s He works in downtown Wincapital, he would divide his time back ston-Salem, a new landscape that he home between the two cities. When is still trying to figure out. he moved back, Tsujii remembered “So people mention the arts as making the drive from Greensboro in being one of the big differences bethe early days of Foothills brewpub tween Winston-Salem and Greenson Fourth Street, and the beginning boro,” he says. “I don’t know. I’d of the music series at Corpening say it’s comparable in quality, to be Plaza. honest. [But] I think the opportunity “It’s one big region,” he said. for creativity and innovation seems “I would equate it in size to the to be more prevalent here in Winston [Washington] DC metro area. When than in Greensboro. It’s a different I was living in DC, I’d venture off to environment in terms of opportunity Maryland and Virginia on weekends to do things and be creative.” all the time.” But then: Kernersville. And so: the Kernersville Solution. “Kernersville is a lot bigger than “So yeah,” he says, “initially I kind people think,” he explains. “There’s of wanted us to move to Winston-Saplenty of things to do there, plenty lem, but my wife… she doesn’t have of stores and our neighborhoods are any plans on leaving her job — she great.” loves where she’s at — so to be fair Interesting, though, that he still to her we split the commute evenly refers to Kernersville as “there.” between the two of us. — BC “The thing is, our daughter still attends public school in Guilford,” he continues. “We’re paying tuition
Hailey Moses
As is common among some local college grads, Hailey Moses stuck around. When the end of her four years at Guilford College didn’t urge her to leave Greensboro, she stayed in the city for a fifth. Then, suddenly, the years stretched to 10. “It’s interesting, looking back,” Moses said. “I don’t remember ever going to Winston-Salem in my years at Guilford.” As many Triad-dwellers would admit, this geographic stagnancy isn’t unique to Moses. Neither is her declaration: “People in Greensboro don’t realize how cool Winston-Salem is.” The misunderstanding is mutual. It’s an oversight she regrets, though she now takes full advantage of a city she never did. Finally ready for a big change, Moses jumped at the recommendation of a friend and took her possessions down the short road west to Winston-Salem this past July, after a decade in Greensboro. She didn’t, however, consider looking for a new job. As the garden educator in the Edible Schoolyard at the Greensboro Children’s Museum, Moses is quite happy. The opportunity to teach and empower kids and families through food education is not something she’s
JOEL SRONCE
ready to give up. Since she decided not to quit her work, Moses had to find a new life nearby yet distant enough from a home she felt she had exhausted. Not every decision needs to have a specific origin, Moses assured. “I was just ready for a good, big change.” She enjoys her morning commute to Greensboro, the time to herself a chance to take harbor in a podcast. (She does admit to being “over it” by the evening drive.) Not surprisingly, it’s the Camel City’s outdoor aspects that the gardener values, even when they involve being within the city. Winston feels greener, she said. Her place is a 10-minute walk from Old Salem; a 20-minute stroll gets her downtown — routes she runs constantly. What’s more, she pointed out, “The restaurants and bars with seating in the front patios, things like that, they contribute to the feeling of so much going on here.” “Plus,” she was quick to include, citing Publix and Trader Joe’s, “Winston-Salem’s grocery game is on point.” — JS
Benjamin Briggs has served as executive director of Preservation Greensboro since 2003, but considering that the High Point native and preservationist lives in an 1843 farmhouse owned by his great-great-great grandfather, it’s not surprising that he wasn’t tempted to pull up stakes. “I’m the sixth generation to have the house,” Briggs said. “There was never any consideration that I would sell that or give it away.” Besides, the location of Briggs’ place on Penny Road near the Palladium makes for pretty a convenient commute to his office at the Blandwood Mansion in Greensboro, and it’s also not far from High Point’s core city. “My dad raised me with the understanding that people in Greensboro are adversarial to High Point,” Briggs said. “My COURTESY Benjamin Briggs experience is that is somewhat true. There are very distinct strong educational component compared to reality structures that remain. High Point wants Greensboro, which is home to UNCG, NC to remain independent. Greensboro feels that A&T University, Bennett College, GreensHigh Point should be a subset, or they feel boro College, Guilford College and Elon Law that its streets are confusing, and they avoid it School. altogether.” “High Pont has been more of a business-foBriggs said he’s thought about organizing cused city,” Briggs said. “It’s a can-do city. a coach tour of High Point for Greensboro People in High Point feel more enabled to residents. get things done in a pragmatic fashion. On “Ninety-five percent of people in Greensthe other hand, Greensboro has an educaboro have no idea about the diverse architectional focus. That causes people to slow down ture in High Point,” he said. “People in High and ponder decisions…. In High Point, it’s a Point know about [the Greensboro neighborchecklist; you go through it and check off all hood of] Fisher Park; the reverse isn’t true.” the items. If you go to a committee meeting in Briggs’ loyalty and interest in his hometown Greensboro, they’ll check to see how everyis manifested in his research, support for body’s feeling about it and try to come to a local businesses and willingness to pitch in to consensus before making a decision.” support local organizations — everything from As an example of High Point’s can-do spirit, writing a book about High Point history that Briggs cited Phyllis Bridges, who has completwas published in 2008 to showing up for a ed two documentaries on African-American cash mob to support the renowned soul food history in the city, with additional material left restaurant Becky’s and Mary’s. And he’s helping over for future projects. to rebuild the High Point Preservation Society, “She just saw this need and this opportunity which celebrated its new start with a wine to get something done, and she did it,” Briggs and cheese soiree at Pandora’s Manor Bed & said. “I have not seen an example of that kind Breakfast on Monday. (See related story on of work in Greensboro. It seems like things are page 8.) a little more facilitated through the city, maybe Although High Point is younger than its through the civil rights museum, Bennett larger neighbor, Briggs said the two cities share College or maybe A&T. There are so many a Quaker heritage and legacy of manufacturpartnership opportunities.” ing. The primary difference between the two, — JG he said, is that until the recent expansion of High Point University, High Point hasn’t had a
Clay Howard: A rambling man Lives in: Kernersville Works in: Greensboro Plays in: Winston-Salem
Clay Howard
The pebble of Clay Howard’s life was dropped in Greensboro some years ago, but its ripples have since ventured out over the Triad and beyond. A Southeast Guilford High alum, Howard remained in Greensboro after getting married. Then, in order to more evenly split the commute to their separate jobs — his wife works as a teacher in Winston-Salem — the couple settled down in Kernersville, where they live today. Their kids attend school in Winston-Salem, too. Howard continues to work in Greensboro, now as vice president of the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, though his home and his heart linger elsewhere. [Disclosure: Triad City Beat keeps its offices in the Nussbaum Center.] “There are more opportunities for my kind of music in Winston-Salem,” Howard explained. “Greensboro has a good scene for young people, Americana and acoustic stuff, but I’m a rocker.” Howard cites the Camel City’s support of the arts as the reason he and his band, Clay Howard & the Silver Alerts, call it their musical home.
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Benjamin Briggs: Preservationist Lives in: High Point Works in: Greensboro
JOEL SRONCE
“The Winston-Salem music scene has really flourished, as Trade Street has,” Howard said, alluding to venues such as Test Pattern, which opened in 2016. Along with previous variety shows and nonprofit benefits, Howard mentioned the Friday Night Music Club at Bull’s Tavern that would take place on Jan. 20, in which he would perform as a special guest with host band the Plaids. “The inclusiveness of players, musicians and different people really separates Winston and Greensboro,” he said. Howard doesn’t mind the 10 years of commuting either. The 20-minute trip out and 30 or 40-minute trip home are chances for him to listen to the band’s recent mixes or just clear his head. Howard still likes Greensboro, he clarified. “I just don’t play here!” he laughed. — JS
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story
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here’s a rule that food writers are often taught early in their careers which states that you should wait about a month after a new restaurant opens before you review it. It’s only fair to allow the team to train up its staff, find its rhythm with cooking and ordering food, and work out any kinks in the system that might arise. Bandito Bodega needed no such generous lead time. It’s true that there are still a couple of things that could stand to change at the small restaurant near Mad Hatter on West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro — namely, the counter is so deep that it’s a little awkward to reach across and pay your check. A window cut into the wall, directly to the right of the cashier, could ease ordering in the future. But other than that, Nick Benshoff’s restaurant is ready for customers and reviewers alike as of Jan. 17. I showed up on Day 1, flagrantly disregarding the industry rule I’d been taught, in part because I trusted Benshoff to execute but primarily because I already knew I liked his food. It’s been several years since the red-
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CULTURE Bandito Bodega opens, thrills
by Eric Ginsburg
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Pick of the Week Seed Swap and Potluck @ the Old Salem Visitor Center (W-S), Saturday, 11 a.m. Slow Food Piedmont holds its annual event to encourage first-time growers and experienced gardeners to exchange seeds and gain garden wisdom. This event is free and includes a potluck lunch. More info on the Facebook event page.
The “small” kimchi quesadilla is anything but, while the NC catch entree comes with assorted Asian ingredients and flavors.
ERIC GINSBURG
headed and ponytailed Benshoff launched the Bandito Burrito tofu, pan-fried gyoza (a dumpling) and nachos with house food truck. He’s been a regular at events, and I remember the spicy pickles, queso fresco, chipotle crema and guac. The Big Ass Burrito is still here, joined by a more Mediterfirst time I ate his Asian-style soft tacos with Korean soy glaze, cabbage, bean sprouts, radish, jalapeño and Thai peanut sauce ranean option in the Kafta Burrito featuring seasoned beef and lamb, tzatziki, tahini buttermilk rice, crispy chickpeas and as I sat at a table in Center City Park. Damn, I remember thinkfresh cilantro. Knowing that Benshoff could pull off Mexican ing, these are incredibly satisfying. And I remember first trying and Asian flavors based on prior experience, I went for the Bandito’s Big Ass Burrito, a vessel featuring more traditionally Kafta. Here too, Bandito’s proprietor and head chef proves Mexican ingredients that lived up to its name, outside College no less adept, delighting me and the two friends I came with Hill Sundries late one night. (who I only let try it because they graciously offered to share Bandito Bodega is his brick-and-mortar shop, a move that foodies mused would happen more with the city’s relaxation with me as well). The rest of the menu leans Asian, with one dish featuring of food truck laws a few years ago but a trend that has yet to Vietnamese pork, the NC catch starring Korean Gochujang materialize. sauce, and a list of sides that includes cold sesame noodles The side walls of Bandito Bodega are lined with framed piecand bok choy. But there’s a southwest es of tattoo flash, and several matching men showed up on opening night. It’s a pimiento burrito and carne asada fries as Visit Bandito Bodega at well, not to mention a veggie quesadilla small space, with just a couple tables and 1609 W. Friendly Ave. (GSO) that utilizes roasted beets, mushrooms a short row of barstools facing into the and goat cheese. open kitchen — what did you expect from or at banditobodega.com. Bandito Bodega is dimly lit enough at a restaurant with “bodega” in the name? The venue is big enough that it’s more night to provide a relaxing environment, than just a takeout spot, but small enough that it’s easy to so much so that my friends and I didn’t realize that more than overhear conversation about recent Friday the 13th tattoos or two hours had slipped by as we sipped Coke from glass bottles and caught up over food until a staffer turned off the “Open” to catch Benshoff remarking that he’s glad to be in a bigger light in the front window. But during the day that same large kitchen than the one on his truck. The menu at Bandito Bodega is split between little and big window would allow ample sunlight to pour in, much more than Benshoff is likely used to on his truck. options, though in the case of the “small” kimchi quesadilla, Hopefully Bandito Bodega means more people eating his the label is a misnomer. (No complaints from me though, food too — Benshoff is one of Greensboro’s more popular yet and it’s delicious.) The standby Asian-style and baja tacos are still underrated chefs, and it’s nice to see his business growing. there, at $3.50 a pop, as well as a few apps including age dashi
SPREADING JOY ONE PINT AT A TIME
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Triad Beverage Alliance organizes the booze scene
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tional cocktail festival in New Orleans. Others raised cocktail competitions, the cicerone exam and industry-standards training like TIPS, which teaches
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Attend the next meeting on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. at Breathe Cocktail Lounge, located at 221 N. Main St. Kernersville. Contact triadbeveragealliance@ gmail.com for more info.
employees to prevent overintoxication, drunk driving and underage drinking. Several meeting attendees supported better access to health insurance, though details were not discussed. Another great idea: funding Triad distillers and brewers in the creation of specialty products like an authentic Old Tom Gin or Crème de Violette. There was also talk of Service Industry Nights — designated Sunday or Monday nights when service industry professionals receive discounts at participating locations. After the meeting, the alliance created a closed Facebook group and a team workflow management account through Slack. The ease of communication will come in handy not just for planning events and putting initial organizational pieces into place, but for splitting cases (sharing the cost and stock of a specialty item) and sharing bartenders (which helps accommodate fluctuating demand and gives barkeeps exposure to new populations). Once the group gains its US Bartenders’ Guild member status, they’ll need at least 40 paying individuals to qualify as an officially chartered chapter. Those directly associated with the service and beverage industries will pay $125 annually for membership; enthusiasts and other third parties will owe $150 per year. It’s a small price for a more robust, connected and exciting local booze scene.
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space. Another attainable goal is to set up a nonprofit, which will enable the group to host events in the Triad, both private and public. Private events will range from social to professional, including classes on basic bartending skills and the Certified Specialist of Wine exam. Events for the public will be the primary way of uniting the community at large. The group hopes to offer cocktail classes focused on themes like gin or scotch, monthly dinners at rotating restaurants, themed dine-out weeks and a passport book to area restaurants and bars. With proceeds from public events, the creation of a nonprofit could fund many of the professional-development needs of service-industry members. Ideas flowed quickly and furiously at the meeting, with mentions of BevCon, the annual beverage industry conference, and Tales of the Cocktail, the interna-
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group of 20 area bartenders, bar managers, brewers and other service and beverage industry workers by Kat Bodrie met on Jan. 16 at Gia restaurant in Greensboro to form an alliance that will unite Triad bars and restaurants and their employees. “Right now, we’re all just a bunch of silos,” said Nino Giaimo, mixologist and owner of Gia. But that is quickly changing. The group, which currently calls itself Triad Beverage Alliance, had met only once before the meeting at Gia last week and is already moving in the direction of its lofty objectives. “We want to better our community, restaurants and bars,” said Casey Clanton, a bartender at LaRue Elm in downtown Greensboro. “By building the Triad service industry, we can promote the area so outsiders will learn about and visit our community.” One step in putting the Triad on the map is for Triad Beverage Alliance to apply to the US Bartenders’ Guild, a national nonprofit created for bartenders to learn more about their craft and grow professionally. Applying involves submitting a list of at least 50 interested individuals, determining four founding members and nominating temporary officers, all of which Triad Beverage Alliance is currently in the process of doing. Eventually, the organization will open a bank account and secure office
KAT BODRIE
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The Triad Beverage Alliance meets to discuss organizational strategies, fundraising and other ideas.
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front
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huzz Phest, Winston-Salem’s homegrown music festival, has passed into the annals of the Triad music scene’s history after five years of rocking the Camel City. Phuzz Phest founder Philip Pledger cited “the changing atmosphere of venues and the work associated with [the] single-weekend event” as deciding factors in the festival’s demise. The downtown festival found its home in places as diverse as the Millennium Center and the newly constructed
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CULTURE Musicians mourn Phuzz Phest, remember good times
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(336)955-1888 Pick of the Week Annual campaign kick-off party @ the Barn at Reynolda Village (WS), Monday, Jan. 30, 5:30 p.m. Join the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County for an event that features performances by Jacinta White, Ezra Noble and Aaron Bachelder. Light refreshments including beer and wine are provided. More info at intothearts.org.
Bailey Park to familiar haunts like Krankies Coffee and, of course, the Garage. Bands and musicians both in Winston-Salem and outside city limits bemoaned the loss. “Phuzz has become a sign of spring — you expect it as a part of the calendar and look forward to it,” said vocalist Rachel Endsley, who has performed at the festival with both Make Light and Judy Barnes. “It’s been a great opportunity to reconnect with people after a long hibernation and present all of winter’s slow, solitary creative work.” Eddie Garcia, who played Phuzz both with now-defunct band Jews & Catholics and solo as 1970s Film Stock, said the news was “disappointing, but somewhat expected” in an interview. “I know that the festival was always trying to FILE PHOTO Thee Oh Sees perform at the 2016 Phuzz Phest. Attendeees get more backing from the arts council and from didn’t realize at the time it would be the festival’s last year. the city, and wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t get the funding they were looking for,” Garcia 2014. Jews & Catholics shared the bill with the Los Angeadded. les-based noise-rock duo. Pledger stated that Phuzz Records will receive a slice of “I got to meet and interview those guys twice — one for support from the $50,000 Creative Ventures Fund established WFDD, once for Pedal Fuzz — [and] hang out at their sound by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County last check,” Garcia said, referring to his day job at the public radio fall. Instead of devoting these funds to a single festival, the station as well as a music website he recently launched. label has scheduled a series of concerts through the spring and Garcia stated his belief that 2014 was the breakout year for summer as a continuation of the festival’s spirit. Phuzz Phest. “The Phuzz Records events are the exact sorts of things that “I felt the city was really alive and the ‘phuzz’ was in the air,” the festival would do, just spread out over time,” Pledger said. Garcia said. “I felt the sky was the limit with this thing.” Regardless of any perceptions of support, Pledger looked However, Garcia believed the best band the festival ever back on the experience positively. featured was probably Trans Am in 2015, also at Krankies. “I’ve met some truly incredible musicians, and was happy to “The entire crowd was going absolutely insane,” Garcia said. be able to bring world-class talent to Winston-Salem to per“I’m usually reserved at shows, [but] I went bonkers, poundform in some unusually intimate spaces when these acts likely ing the stage, going nuts with friends all around me. It was wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” Pledger said. beautiful.” Pledger rattled off a dozen favorite acts from all the years Phuzz Phest’s absence leaves both a vacuum and something past: Hiss Golden Messenger on the porch of Krankies in 2012, to be desired for Winston-Salem. William Tyler at Reanimator in 2013, Mount Moriah at the “If someone tried the same thing in Winston, it probably Garage in 2014, Ex Hex at Bailey Park in 2015, Neon Indian at wouldn’t have the same scope of what Phuzz pulled off, from the Millennium Center in 2016. the shows at Bailey Park and the Millennium Center to the “2016 really was an incredible year for us on all levels, but bands playing on the sidewalk in the daylight — RIP Reanimathere are fun memories from every year,” Pledger concluded. tor,” Peters said, referring to the city’s now-defunct record “It was especially cool to watch some artists’ careers grow store and hangout near Krankies. over the course of the festival.” Garcia remained optimistic, but spared room for more Asheville band the Tills, who record under Pledger’s Phuzz pointed criticism. Records label, exemplifies that idea. Through bassist Tom Pe“I would love to see [Phuzz] or something like it again,” ters, the group extended graciousness on behalf of the Tills. he said. “But the city needs to support it, take a chance. We “Phuzz Phest gave us some of the biggest crowds we’ve ever can tout the strong arts scene here all we want, but until we played for, thanks in part to Phuzz putting out our record,” get city and public buy-in on the same level of a Durham or Peters said in an interview. Raleigh, we’ll always be second-tier.” Peters also mentioned meeting “Texas Pete” — sponsor of Still, concerning support from Winston-Salem, Pledger conPhuzz Phest 2014 — as one of his fondest memories. tinued Garcia’s argument without assigning blame. Endsley mentioned her favorite shows occurred at Reani“It feels good, healthy and constructive to work towards mator Records, the similarly extinct record store and hangout making music — current, excellent modern music — more near Krankies. of a focus for Winston-Salem,” Pledger said. “If we’re calling “The intimacy and immediacy of that small space amplified ourselves the City of Arts & Innovation, we simply have got any energy by 1000,” Endsley said. to create spaces and opportunities for cutting-edge musical For his part, Garcia cited two favorite shows from Phuzz’s performance to take place.” history. The first that came to mind: No Age at Krankies in
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a community need for expanded arts and humanities programming.” The mother of an Alpha Phi Alpha member fashioned a piece to celebrate her son’s membership in the first black fraternity. The emblems on the quilt — honor, respect, protect — mirror the Delta Arts Center’s ambition of social action and involvement, another example of the inseparable union between cultural and artistic preservation.
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CULTURE Quilters reveal memories and reverence through textile art
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Annual campaign kick-off party @ the Barn at Reynolda Village (WS), Monday, Jan. 30, 5:30 p.m. Join the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County for an event that features performances by Jacinta White, Ezra Noble and Aaron Bachelder. Light refreshments including beer and wine are provided. More info at intothearts.org.
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by Joel Sronce vil travels in straight lines, so stay on and reverence. the drunkard’s path; cover your trail. Spiener-Jones Follow the geese north in spring. Take created the quilt the sailboat across the Great Lakes to the from a picture of North Star above Canada. her grandfather, At the end of an interview near the gallery sitting with a entrance, quilter Peggy Moore revealed the hat tilted low meaning behind each pattern on the Underover his eyes, a ground Railroad replica quilt, an essential staff in his hand part of the Raw Edges exhibit at the Delta and pipe in his Arts Center in East Winston-Salem. The mouth. Quansampler quilt contains 15 traditional patder called the terns, ones that some historians believe may stunning result have served as communication between “a textile monu- Quilter Peggy Moore stands by her most JOEL SRONCE slaves on their way to freedom. ment,” harkenrecent piece at the Delta Arts Center. From Jan. 17 to April 8, the Delta Arts Cening the desire to ter — a nonprofit organization that engages revere someone in cultural, educational and public service and communicate their life to others. It’s an invitation to inquire, even privately, activities — presents diverse textile art by into the life of the man portrayed in fabric and string. local African-American quilters. Using collage-style quilting — small and disparate pieces, as opposed to large, Whether or not the patterns contained balanced squares and angels — Spiener-Jones chose black, white and gray-blue clues doesn’t alter the enormous role that fabrics to impart a colorless antiquity to her modern, wall-hanging creation. textiles have played and continue to play in Elsewhere in the exhibit, traditions abound. African-American communities. Throughout In a very fortunate opportunity, Peggy Moore provided a personal tour of the the country, educators have adapted Unhanging quilts and her own history as a textile artist. derground Railroad quilts into lesson plans She began at her quilt, a floral border filled with bright, floating trimmings of in order to study history through art. The light blue, orange and black. Those squares are complete with small pieces of an drunkard’s path — a meandering route often old blouse that she cut up to finalize represented by sewing a concave curve to a her work’s gorgeous aesthetic. convex curve — provides an archaic example: Moore then walked to her aunt’s Many African tribes believed a break in a quilt. Decades ago in Mocksville, pattern symbolized rebirth and power; if evil Moore’s aunt hand-stitched a bedtravels in straight lines, a break baffles and sized quilt with 30 differently coldelays the spirits. It’s easy to draw a parallel ored eight-point stars that allude to to white men hunting the escaping slaves’ the traditional North Star pattern. entangled trail. According to Moore, the creation As pieces of folklore, both historical of the polyester quilt was far more and contemporary quilts ask an important complicated than it seems. “Polyesquestion: How do we talk to one another ter holds its colors, doesn’t fade, but through these artifacts we leave behind? it’s horrific to sew, unlike cotton,” It was the question on director Nadiyah she said. “Heat affects it poorly, Quander’s mind as she searched for ways to too.” exhibit art that proves Moore thought the “more intimate, under different fabrics might Raw Edges can be seen the skin and off the include the clothwall.” at the Delta Arts Center ing that her aunt’s Quander praised daughters outgrew, or in East Winston-Salem the different reasons different men’s suits through April 8. that the women that were popular at behind the beautiful the time. pieces began quilting: Her tour ended storytelling, memories and oral histories. with a quilt inspired by the first “It’s an opportunity for those who may African-American fraternity, an not consider themselves artists to share important link to the Delta Arts their work and stories,” she said. “The reCenter’s own sorority origin: “Delta sults are enriching and unexpected.” Fine Arts began as a project of the Of all the quilts in the exhibit, Roslyn Winston-Salem Alumnae Chapter Spiener-Jones’ masterpiece “Big Daddy” best of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,” the exemplifies the desire to express memory organization states, “in response to
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January 25 – 31, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story
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sory team and later approved designs for both a fullsized skatepark and a smaller skate spot. The former will be constructed along Latham Park northwest of downtown; the latter was planned behind Glenwood Recreation Center using a pre-existing concrete slab. Time passed by as slowly as ever until that glum January day arrived. Before the official ribbon-cutting began, skateboarders, rollerskaters and bikers of all ages showed off their ollies, kickflips and shuvits on the 4,000 square-foot concrete plaza under the matching sky. A platform centered the skate spot, flanked on either side by quarter-pipes with rails. It was simple, but clearly appreciated. The rec center’s skinny parking strip had filled to the brim by 3:30 p.m. Cars crowded adjacent streets. Dozens milled about, including many kids who took advantage of the cupcakes and other snacks offered. Then, Fabio Camara stepped into the middle of the plaza. “We’re gonna clear the park so we can have this ribbon-cutting ceremony,” Camara called to the skaters still wheeling by him. “Save it for the best trick!” Camara, a photographer who’s skateboarded for 30 years — since his childhood in Brazil — was part of the six-skater advisory team formed three years prior, and he approved of the results. “The spot has just enough elements to give skaters hours of entertainment without taking away too much from our original skatepark budget,” Camara said after the event. “It is perfectly what we imagined for that location.” Funnily enough, for all that waiting, it only took about two weeks to complete the skate spot according to Camara. With a podium bearing the Greensboro Parks & Recreation Department logo hastily scurried onto the slab, Councilwoman Sharon Hightower — representative of District 1, which includes Glenwood — was one of the best-received speakers to mark the occasion. 100%/ART/VOL 2017 PROOF “We talk about baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer,” Hightower said. “And now, we can skate.” “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” a bystander shouted approvingly as others applauded. “I’m gonna debate getting on a skateboard later, as long as you SCHEDULE VISIT US ONLINE AT FOR A COMPLETE PERFORMANCE have EMS standing by,” Hightower WWW.GREENSBOROFRINGEFESTIVAL.ORG quipped to laughter. INFO LINE: 336.549.7431 Camara also took a moment to address the crowd. “[City council members] were
lat gray clouds blanketing the sky overhead warned of an impending downpour. But on Jan. 21, Greensboro’s skating community was too hyped to be turned away from the opening of the Glenwood Skate Spot by the by Anthony Harrison mere threat of dreary weather. They’d waited for this for more than a decade. Skateboarding in Greensboro has been a point of contention. In the past, the city could claim the one of the oldest skateparks in the state: 915 Skatepark opened in the late ’90s near UNCG. Yet in the mid2000s, Greensboro outlawed skateboarding downtown, with the police inflicting a hefty $200 fine on top of impounding any offender’s board; UNCG also cracked down on skaters flowing through their campus. Soon after, 915 shuttered. But in 2006, voters approved a $575,000 bond to build a public skatepark. Somewhere. Sometime. In the meantime, skaters built DIY elements scattered in clandestine reaches of town. In 2014, the skating community assembled an advi-
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open to our suggestions, and they made it so that skateboarding will have a future in this community,” Camara said. Parks Director Wade Walcutt, who had spoken before Hightower, added some final thoughts before the ribbon cutting. “Skating elements like this don’t pop up everywhere,” Walcutt said. “It’s pieces like this that make us special.” Board Paradise, a skate shop in Greensboro’s Midtown, had prepared to sponsor a trick contest, awarding finalists with $300, two boards, decks, wheels and more. More than a dozen aspired to win the various prizes, and Board Paradise allowed a few minutes for the participants to warm up. Their emcee spat some words of encouragement peppered with trash talk. “We’re not gonna give all the prizes away at once,” he said. “You might end up with money. You might end up with product. You might end up with a girlfriend. “I don’t wanna see you fall,” he added, “but at the same time, I do.” And then the rains came. The sprinkling seemed bearable at the outset. Most of the assembled crowd simply huddled under provided tents, and the skaters themselves continued practicing on the glazed concrete. But the sky soon opened, and a torrential downpour threatened the safety even of veteran tricksters. Attendees scattered for their cars, and the contest was cancelled. Some skaters received gear then and there, but the cash prize would have to wait. Glenwood Skate Spot still proved a watershed moment for Greensboro’s skateboarding community. “Our long-term vision is to create several spots in key locations that work as supplemental skate options to the centrally located Latham Skatepark,” Camara stated after the ceremony, referring to the planned massive skatepark on Hill Street north of Green Hill Cemetery. Camara called the planned Latham Park location — under construction and tentatively opening this April — as “the real skatepark,” but noted Glenwood Skate Spot “a taste of what’s to come for Greensboro.”
Pick of the Week No sympathy for the devil Duke University Blue Devils @ Wake Forest University Demon Deacons (W-S), Saturday, 3 p.m. As of press time, the Deacs (12-7, 3-4) are coasting off two big wins, quelling the University of Miami Hurricanes at home and a solid win at NC State University. But the other satanic team of the Atlantic Coast Conference — Duke (13-5, 3-4) — will challenge them in this weekend’s matinee at Lawrence Joel after losing to State on Monday. For tickets, visit wakeforestsports.com.
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Across 1 A-list notable 6 “Big Blue” company 9 Exudes affection 14 Tell jokes to 15 Perrins’s partner in sauce 16 TV host with a book club 17 Slow reaction to making tears? 19 1980s attorney general Edwin 20 157.5 deg. from N 21 Insurer’s calculation 22 Gave bad luck to 23 ___ Lingus (carrier to Dublin) 24 Red-sweatered Ken from a 2016 presidential debate 25 Voracious “readers” of old audiobooks, slangily? 31 Responsibility shirker’s cry 32 Coyote’s cries 33 Gulf Coast st. ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 35 Bitty amount 36 Test versions 37 Ditch 38 “All Things Considered” co-host Shapiro 39 Ninja Turtles’ hangout 40 ___ and variations 41 Three fingers from the bartender, for instance? 44 John’s “Double Fantasy” collaborator 45 Blackhawks and Red Wings org. 46 Montana moniker 49 1978-’98 science magazine 51 “___ death do us part” 54 Act histrionically 55 What the three longest answers are actually held together by 57 XTC’s “Making Plans for ___” 58 Adjust, as a skirt Answers from previous publication. 59 Corset shop dummy 60 Newspaper piece 27 “Quadrophenia” band 61 Creator of a big head 28 Pacific Northwestern pole 62 React to Beatlemania, perhaps 29 Craftsperson, in steampunk circles 30 Nickelodeon’s green subtance-in-trade Down 31 Actress Vardalos 1 Ill-bred men 34 “George of the Jungle” creature 2 Auckland Zoo animals 36 First name mentioned in “Baby Got Back” 3 Fortune founder Henry 37 Jewish house of prayer 4 Strong following? 39 Carmichael who coined the phrase “black power” 5 Doctor’s orders, sometimes 40 Cannon fodder for the crowd? 6 Societal woes 42 Seafood in a “shooter” 7 Bird’s bill 43 Elsa’s sister 8 Could possibly 46 Folds and Harper, for two 9 Franchise whose logo has three pips 47 Unreal: abbr. 10 Letter tool 48 Type of dancer or boot 11 “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” rockers 49 “In My Own Fashion” autobiographer Cassini 12 Facility 50 Sticky note note 13 Leave hairs everywhere 51 Pasty luau fare 18 Britain’s neighbor, to natives 52 ___ facto 22 Prominent part of a Nixon caricature 53 “Sex on Fire” group Kings of ___ 23 K2’s continent 55 “Weekend Update” cohost Michael 24 Haunted house warning 56 Haul a trailer 25 Brewer of Keystone and Blue Moon 26 Top floor
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sharing videos of their kids weeping because they’ve been given a kitten or a ferret or because you’ve just pulled into a Disney-adjacent parking lot instead of the pediatrician’s office? To me, those videos are way more uncomfortable than they are adorable, and the underlying message always seems like it’s less about the kid and more “Look at what a great parent I am! She’s weeping because I just bought her something amazing! Try to beat that before your next playdate.” The video of this kid with the kitten didn’t seem cute or heartwarming: It seemed invasive and borderline exploitative, as do all of the clips like this. I’m not saying don’t film this stuff — it’s cool if you film all of it. Save it to remember how excited your children got before they mutate into sullen teenagers. Send it to their grandparents or their far-flung aunts and uncles, or save it so you can humiliate them during their wedding receptions. But don’t put it online so everyone with an internet connection can watch your kid having an after-school breakdown. To me, those videos are contrived, set up to elicit an overly emotional reaction and probably reinforce behaviors that don’t need to be reinforced — and they affect the kids, too. I know it’s tempting to put our entire lives on Facebook, especially because there’s a built-in audience for it all. But forcing Carol in accounting to watch something in the hopes that she’ll click that Like button is, again, just validating you, not your inconsolable 8-year-old. But now that I think about it, maybe I’ll start doing the same thing. When I do something nice for myself, I’ll start recording it, sharing my teary-eyed response when I buy my own lunch. “It’s a burrito!” I’ll say, wiping my eyes. “It’s the Citgo burrito I always wanted!”
News
unfashionable eyeglasses calmly explaining bloodsplatter patterns. (And every single episode — even the ones about crimes from last summer — looks like it was filmed with your dad’s old Camcorder, like someone recorded that interview with Captain LensCrafter over your fifth grade dance recital.) But even when it’s broadcasting news, it’s not really news, you know? I mean, it’s not “fake news” like the new president shakes his tiny fists about, and it’s not the “alternative facts” that Kellyanne Conway deliriously defends, but it’s not news. Basically, if the other cable news networks were the Jacksons, HLN would be Tito. A couple of mornings ago, Meade excitedly transitioned from a story about a woman who discovered an icicle in her hall closet (Tell us more about this frozen water, you sorceress!) to a viral video featuring a kid who was uncontrollably sobbing because her mom gave her a kitten. And that’s when I immediately changed the channel. Let me just preface this next thing by saying that this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but that’s cool, I have a lot of unpopular opinions. (Like what? Like, I legit slept through the first half of Rogue One because, with all of the tedious dialogue about senators and alliances, it was like watching Space C-SPAN. Like, I would rather eat a burrito from that little reheated Ferris wheel at the Citgo station than pay for its overpriced, flavorless cousin at Chipotle. Like, I’m not attracted to Benedict Cumberbatch because I think he looks like a femur.) And let me also preface it by saying that I’m not a parent. I don’t have children or pets or houseplants and I probably wouldn’t even qualify to adopt a highway. But could this maybe, please, be the year that parents stop
Up Front
’m not great at mornings. Regardless of what time the alarm goes off, I never hit the snooze bar as much as I go fullon Rumble in the Jungle against it, pummeling the face of my iPhone until its factory-installed shrieking noises stop. When I do by Jelisa Castrodale finally manage to pull myself to a standing position, it’s another hour before I can form real words instead of sounding like an icemaker with a face. This is why I’m completely dazzled by any morning news anchor, or anyone who can read full sentences before 10 a.m. I’m sort of a news addict, flipping from channel to channel while I simultaneously try to untangle my own eyelashes, and inevitably I end up on HLN. I’ve seen every morning show (or at least the last 30 minutes of every morning show) and no one can match HLN “Morning Express” host Robin Meade when it comes to unnatural a.m. energy levels. I could do more amphetamines than the 1986 Mets and still not have that kind of enthusiasm, especially not for reading copy about cat-food recalls. HLN, which used to be known as Headline News, is a weird channel. It fills most of its on-air hours with reruns of “Forensic Files,” so there’s a good chance that, at some point during the day, you’ll see a man with
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