TCB May 31, 2017 — Vanessa and the Voice

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point May 31 – June 6, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

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The boy who could do anything

by Brian Clarey

Cap would not have wanted me to write this.

He didn’t want me talking about it at all. Not with him, not with our friends or his family, not with

anybody.

But he’s gone now. And in the end, the booze had him so bad he was beyond caring what anybody thought. So there’s nothing to stop me from gleaning what I can from the whole of his life, tragically short and woefully unlived as it was.

I met Chris Cappelletti in kindergarten on Long Island, or maybe the summer before at Hemlock Park, part of our neighborhood network for children that ran all the way west to Washington Avenue, easily traversable by bike or skateboard.

From the beginning, he was good at everything. Kickball first, then soccer and baseball. He could drop shots on the court at Hemlock all day long, and I’m pretty sure he could even play tennis. He had all the inside information on parties and concerts — he was our designated mail-order guy for Grateful Dead tickets — and he could drive to this friendly little bodega in Queens and back inside a 24-minute lunch period.

He stayed on the honors track in school, too, until senior year when we all slacked off a little. That year, I saw him jump behind a drum kit before a band practice and just start… playing drums. Like he’d done it a million times.

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

For some reason, that sticks with me. As does the specter of his apartment when Dr. Lawyer and I went up there 10 years ago to get him into a hospital, before I really knew what was going on: broken windows, a pile of cigarette butts in the toilet rising above the waterline, an army of empty liquor bottles — the kind with handles — by the door.

And still there were those fine, forgotten Italian suits lined up in the closet, because before he fell off that time he had been making a killing selling commercial real estate in Manhattan. He could do anything.

But he couldn’t stop drinking.

He’d put together a year or a long string of sober months, and then he’d drink until everything crashed down around him again, a terrible cycle from which he could not escape. Not with all his abilities, all his confidence, all his force of will, which at one time was quite formidable.

The booze didn’t do him any favors. It finished off his career and most of his relationships. It took his health and, eventually, his mind. It robbed him of his potential and left him to die alone.

There was nothing any of us could do.

I said goodbye to Cap years ago, and have since pondered the lessons he had to give.

And I know it wasn’t much of a life for him there at the end, and I hadn’t talked to him in years. But still the world feels different to me without him in it.

That’s something I wish he could have known.

Selling Lindley Park

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100 Neighborhood Homes Sold

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com

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CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Spencer KM Brown

Cover photo of Vanessa Ferguson

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May 31 – June 6, 2017

CITY LIFE May 31 – June 6

by Eric Hairston

WEDNESDAY Shrimp boil @ Blue Denim restaurant (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

Enjoy a half-pound of North Carolina shrimp with andouille sausage, corn and potatoes.

Regular dinner menu items and specials will be available. Andy Squint performs live music. For more information, visit bluedenimgso.com.

FRIDAY Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic story comes to life as five actors play more than 40 characters in this timeless mischievous comedy thriller. For more information, visit thelittletheatreofws.org.

Influence art exhibit @ Green Hill (GSO), noon This annual art collaboration features work from 18 influential instructors highlighting their styles and expertise in a wide variety of mediums. For more information, visit greenhillnc.org.

First Friday @ downtown (GSO, W-S), 6 p.m.

The Triad’s bigger cities celebrate the beginning of June with a night of art, music, entertainment and delicious food. For more information visit, firstfridaygreensboro.org and visitwinstonsalem.com.

SATURDAY

THURSDAY Twin City Ribfest @ Winston-Salem Fairgrounds (W-S), 11 a.m.

The kickoff of the 13th annual Twin City Ribfest begins with food vendors from all over the country and live music from a variety musical artists. For more information, visit twincityribfest.net.

Metropolis & The Red Violin @ Stevens Center (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

This event features a presentation of the music from Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis composed by Thomas Miller. Bryan Hall will also perform “Chaconne” from The Red Violin by John Corigliano.

For more information, visit piedmontwindsymphony.com.

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The Baker & the Barmaid @ Edible Schoolyard (GSO), 7 p.m.

Participants receive hands-on instruction by Ari Berenbaum (master baker) and Jessica Stallings (mixologist) on how to prepare handmade cocktails and bakery items. Food and drinks will be provided. For more information and pricing, visit gcmuseum.com.

North Carolina wine celebration @ downtown Winston-Salem (W-S), noon The 12th annual wine celebration pours wines from a variety of North Carolina vineyards and offers live music and food. For more information visit, salutencwine.com.

by Brian Clarey

Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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Cover Story

The Family Justice Center model — which is being in the US Justice Department recognizes the Family used in Greensboro and Winston-Salem — emerged in Justice Center model as a best practice in the field of doresponse to these obstacles, providing trauma-informed, mestic violence intervention and prevention services, the comprehensive care in facilities where representatives approach is no panacea. Policies must change and even from the court system, health and human services, the most dynamic, culturally-competent centers must law enforcement and nonprofit advocacy groups work grapple with the challenge of opening access to justice collaboratively to help victims and survivors of domestic and care for uniquely vulnerable populations: LGBTQ, violence, sexual assault, child abuse and human trafficklow-income, trafficked, migrant and undocumented coming. Community members can access therapy, forensic munity members. examinations and acquire protective orders in the same But it’s progress. building.

Intimate partner violence • Gigabit speed internet is a public health crisis; amassing critical com• Private and semi-private munity resources bears meeting spaces outcomes of inherent significance, but research Mentoring | Networking | Collaboration • Floor-to-ceiling dry also shows that interrupting erase board walls Downtown Greensboro’s and preventing it generates entrepreneurial community.

• Comfy community long-term community spaces benefits; boys who witness Memberships start at $50/month. domestic violence are twice • FREE Biscuitville coffee as likely to become abusers.

• Valuable programming Though the Office on and connections Violence Against Women

Opinion

It’s a dismaying statistic: More than a third of women in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, according to a 2010 Center for Disease Control survey.

Yet, intimate-partner violence remains largely invisible and misunderstood, and efforts to address it are under-resourced.

Shame, stigma and cultural myths about why abuse occurs propagate chronic underreporting. Many women don’t disclose abuse due to fear of law enforcement, because they’re unaware of free, available resources or because they don’t believe their abuse warrants intervention.

A vexing characteristic of intimate-partner violence psychology is the tendency to forgive increasingly lethal abusers; domestic violence also breeds an atmosphere in which women struggle to find alternative housing due to financial dependence and social isolation. Sometimes “getting out” isn’t enough; women are most likely to be murdered in the days after leaving their abuser.

This cycle of violence is as insidious as it is vicious.

When women do report, navigating government systems while processing trauma and plan-making is re-traumatizing and overwhelming, especially when children are involved.

News

by Lauren Barber

The Family Justice Center model

Up Front

Listen: I know the sign on the building at the corner of South Elm and Lewis streets says “Trader Joe’s” on it, and I know that end of downtown Greensboro has seen a lot of changes these last few years that it’s conceivable that the district is getting attention from big corporations.

And I know that the people in Greensboro really, really want a Trader Joe’s — in the appropriate neighborhood, of course — but there’s definitely a demand of sorts in the city for cookie butter and whatnot.

But believe me when I tell you that there will be no Trader Joe’s in downtown Greensboro. Not today. Not a couple years from now. Not in a decade.

Like a fight club at Sunday school, a downtown Trader Joe’s is not gonna happen.

There aren’t enough residents downtown to support a venture like this — Trader’s Joe’s proprietary algorithm for new locations is the subject of much internet speculation, but most analyses seem to agree that a population density of 50,000 is the minimum, with a median income of $60,000 and 55 percent college graduation rate.

Does that sound like downtown Greensboro to you?

Plus, the parking would be ridiculous.

BRIAN CLAREY Stop asking why developer Andy Zimmerman’s building has a sign that What we have is a brilliant marketing scheme, perpetrated by Andy mentions Trader Joe’s.

Zimmerman, who owns the Gateway Center property and hopes to attract a high-profile tenant. The rest of it is just a willingness to believe.

Until then, hit the one in Winston-Salem like everybody else does. Or learn to make Most days I don’t buy that Greensboro is on some sort of Trader Joe’s blacklist. your own cookie butter.

Most days. Certainly one should pop up in Greensboro before too long.

Probably.

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Trader Joe’s in downtown Greensboro

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

6

NEWS

Limited cooperation with ICE by sheriff seen as tough on immigration

by Jordan Green

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes campaigned for President Trump, but his agency continues to decline immigration detainers in defiance of ICE. The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office’s policy on immigration detainers had been set since September 2014.

But in December 2016 a new shift commander who had recently joined the staff at the Greensboro Jail questioned whether there was flexibility to allow US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, extra time to pick up an undocumented inmate who had served time, posted bond or otherwise resolved their criminal charges.

Matt Mason, the previous sheriff’s attorney, had established the policy in September 2014, writing in an email to command staff: “Based on recent legal developments, it is my recommendation that our detention facilities not hold inmates under ICE I-247 detainers once the inmate is otherwise entitled to be released unless ICE has and can produce a copy of (1) an outstanding criminal (not civil) arrest warrant, or (2) a valid court order directing the inmate’s detention.”

Mason and his successor, Jim Secor, have concluded that holding inmates violates the Fourth Amendment Constitutional guarantee against unlawful search and seizure, and that holding undocumented inmates beyond their normal release date could expose the sheriff’s office to legal liability.

“Any adverse consequences that could attach to a decision to hold an [inmate] beyond the disposition of his local criminal charges, will fall on us as I am certain the feds will grab the last available chair when the music stops and leave the GCSO standing by itself,” Secor wrote in a Dec. 7 email.

“I am hopeful that our new president may actually honor his Constitutional obligation,” he added. “If so, our policy could change shortly but not just yet.”

The decision for the sheriff’s office to not cooperate with ICE didn’t come without serious deliberation, Secor said.

“It is a difficult course to steer,” Secor told Triad City Beat. “The charges they are being held on are rather significant

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes spoke at a Mike Pence rally at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex in October 2016.

charges. These are not people who were being held for no driver’s license or expired registration. On the flip side, we’ve looked at this thing and have come to the conclusion that holding someone for 48 hours on a detainer absent some kind of judicial signature is going to violate the Fourth Amendment.”

The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office follows the same policy as neighboring Guilford by releasing inmates at the disposition of their state charges or when they make bond, Assistant County Attorney Lonnie Albright said. He added that to his knowledge the jail has not held any immigrant detainees beyond the disposition of their state charges.

ICE receives a notification every time a fingerprint obtained through intake triggers a match in a federal database for immigration offenders. Secor said ICE typically sends an immigration detainer that winds up in the inmate’s file, adding that federal agents rarely make it to Greensboro in time to pick up undocumented inmates before they’re released from custody.

“Their office is in Charlotte,” Secor explained. “For them to make it here in time to get somebody, it’s rarely going

JORDAN GREEN

to happen. That’s where ICE would see the sheriff’s office as deviating from complete compliance with the detainer process.”

Criminal violations by undocumented Guilford County inmates flagged by ICE for removal included at least three charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon, according to ICE immigration detainers from Oct. 29, 2016 through March 2, 2017 that were obtained by TCB. In a couple cases, Secor said, shift commanders at Guilford County jails have held inmates beyond their legal release date to allow ICE to pick them up in violation of the sheriff’s office policy.

He added that shift commanders might have been confused because ICE has started sending a document called an “administrative arrest warrant” with the detainer and they mistakenly believed they were obligated to comply. But the administrative arrest warrants, like detainers, are only signed by an ICE agent and don’t hold legal weight, he said.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office’s policy of limited cooperation with ICE runs counter to the posture of BJ Barnes, a Republican first elected

sheriff in 1994 who has conspicuously aligned himself with high-profile, anti-immigrant politicians in recent years, including President Trump and former Gov. Pat McCrory.

In October 2015, the Guilford County Sheriff’s hosted McCrory’s signing ceremony for HB 318, which outlawed so-called sanctuary cities in North Carolina while barring some governmental agencies from recognizing nonprofit-issued ID — a none-too-subtle jab at the local nonprofit FaithAction, which issues IDs to create trust between immigrants and local law enforcement including the Greensboro and Winston-Salem police departments.

The clamor among conservatives across the country against so-called sanctuary cities gathered force following the July 2015 murder of Kate Steinle by an undocumented immigrant who had been released from custody by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office after refusing to honor an ICE detainer. Politicians from Trump to US Rep. Trey Goudy and NC Sen. Jerry Tillman jumped on the bandwagon. (Unlike some of the inmates subject to ICE detainers in Guilford County, the suspect in the Steinle shooting had not been convicted of a violent crime at the time of his release from jail.)

“32-year-old, beautiful, talented Kate Steinle would probably be alive today if San Francisco had any guts about them whatsoever, which they don’t,” Sen. Tillman said, speaking in support of HB 318. North Carolina became the first state to outlaw sanctuary cities.

Gov. McCrory said during the signing ceremony for HB 318 that sanctuary cities represented a “breakdown” of order and were “contrary to the oath every law enforcement officer and elected official” took “to uphold the Constitution.”

Only weeks after Barnes hosted Gov. McCrory for the signing of HB 318 at the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, ICE attempted to persuade the agency to relax its policy on immigration detainers, according to Sheriff’s Attorney Jim Secor, but Sheriff Barnes held firm.

“We met briefly with the sheriff in advance of the meeting with ICE and

analysis is ongoing, the publication of the Declined Detainer Outcome Report will be temporarily suspended.”

Ironically, the Guilford and Forsyth sheriffs’ offices were not flagged.

“We’re not on that list,” said Jim Secor, the sheriff’s attorney, “but we’re not complying with the requirement to detain someone once they’re eligible for release.”

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Crossword Shot in the Triad

Friday, June 2: Megan Jean & the KFP w/ Rinaldi Flying Circus, Breadfoot Wednesday, June 7: Richard Lloyd (Television) & Peter Holsapple (the Das) Thursday, June 8: Totally Slow, Junior Astronomers, Cold Fronts Friday, July 7: Sarah Shook & the Disarmers

Triaditude Adjustment

Correction An article published in the May 24 issue of Triad City Beat, “Glenwood investor faces mass foreclosure near UNCG development,” under-reported the total amount of back taxes owed properties owned

by Bulent Bediz. The actual amount is $151,853.

not satisfactory to me. It had to do with a joint task force that we were working together.”

The sheriff declined to elaborate on the basis that doing so would compromise a criminal investigation.

Barnes said sheriffs across the state are concerned about their inability to hold inmates on immigration detainers without running afoul of the Constitution. As co-chair of the legislative committee for the NC Sheriff’s Association, Barnes said he has reached out to members of the congressional delegation, including Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis and Reps. Mark Walker and Ted Budd, to lobby for federal legislation that would allow ICE to obtain judicial orders to enforce detainers.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to shame local jurisdictions that don’t honor detainers, Trump’s Jan. 25 executive order instructed the homeland security secretary to create a “Declined Detainer Outcome Report” to “make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to aliens.”

The first report issued was riddled with errors, including declaring that Richmond County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina had declined a detainer, though the inmate sought by ICE was actually in a different county. After three weeks, the agency stopped issuing reports.

A note on the homepage for the program states: “ICE remains committed to publishing the most accurate information available regarding declined detainers across the country and continues to analyze and refine its reporting methodologies. While this

Up Front

designed to accelerate the removal of undocumented immigrants, in part, by pressuring local law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities. Entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” the Jan. 25 executive order has met with only limited success so far.

Among its many provisions, the executive order instructs Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to encourage local agencies to sign what are known as 287(g) agreements to empower local law enforcement officials “to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and supervision of the secretary.”

Both sheriffs in Guilford and Forsyth County have essentially said: No, thanks.

“I don’t have the manpower to be doing my job and ICE’s job, too,” Barnes said in an interview.

Forsyth County Sheriff Bill Schatzman said in late January that he was not considering entering into a 287(g) agreement with Homeland Security.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office previously maintained a 287(g) agreement from 2009 to 2012, but Barnes said the purpose was only to access ICE’s database of immigration offenders. Once a program called Secure Communities was expanded to all 50 states with universal access to the database, he no longer saw a need for the agreement.

The relationship between Sheriff Barnes and ICE hasn’t always been smooth.

“I did butt heads with ICE,” Barnes said. “It was not over who was in charge; it was over whether what they were doing was Constitutional,” Barnes said. “We had some discussions with that, and the answers they gave were

triad-city-beat.com

the decision was to stick to the policy as articulated by Matt Mason,” Secor recalled in a December 2016 email.

“The meeting with ICE was postponed but never rescheduled.”

Barnes told TCB that regardless of his personal feelings about immigration, his oath to uphold the Constitution requires that he adheres to the law.

“There are 11-, 12-, 13 million people here illegally,” he said. “I’m very pragmatic. We’re not going to be able to get all those folks out of the country.

There’s not enough law enforcement.

We would have to stretch the law to get all of them out, and I’m not willing to do that. I don’t know that they’re going to be able to do anything without a law being changed. The detainer is signed by an ICE agent; that is not a judicial order. I need a criminal paper. I made that very clear to them.”

In June 2016, Barnes made the first of three campaign appearances on behalf of Donald Trump as an official surrogate for the candidate. Barnes said he met briefly with then-candidate Trump during the campaign, but the conversation “was wide open” and “didn’t get down into the weeds.” It mostly focused on Trump’s prospects for carrying North Carolina and Guilford County in the November election.

But Barnes said he met Trump a couple years before the campaign, and discussed the impact of drugs on local communities and law enforcement.

Barnes said he told Trump at the time that the nation needed more immigration officers, not more local law enforcement, and that it was important to secure the border, in part, to stem the flow of illegal drugs.

Most of Trump’s comments during his June 2016 appearance in Greensboro, where Barnes gave a warm-up speech, focused on refugees and Islamic extremism, but a year earlier Trump had attempted to tie the man accused of killing Steinle to terrorism.

“There’s tremendous crime,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on July 4, 2015. “Illegal immigration is just incredible. You talk about terrorism and terrorists, they’re gonna come in on the southern border, too, because it’s the easiest thing — you just walk right in.”

Once elected, one of Trump’s first acts was to sign an executive order

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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Winston-Salem’s new Zagster bike-share program: a user review

by Jordan Green

A new bike-share program in Winston-Salem attracts enthusiastic ridership.

Matthew Burczyk, Winston-Salem’s bicycle and pedestrian transportation coordinator, said the city moved up plans to inaugurate its bike-share program because they wanted to have at least a couple stations in place for this year’s Winston-Salem Cycling Classic.

With hundreds of people gathered to watch the Pro Women’s and Men’s Road Races on Memorial Day from Bailey Park, the eight white Zagster bikes secured at a station at the southwest corner of the park garnered plenty of attention but few takers. While a smattering of parents with children brought their own bikes, most of the attention focused on the pro riders. Every 20 minutes or so JORDAN GREEN the riders completed laps, zoomA bystander checks out the new Zagster bike-share station at Bailey Park while waiting to see racers from the Pro Men’s Road Race on Monday. ing past cheering crowds lining Patterson Avenue at speeds that anticipates more stations will be added although I probably could have toughed well exceeded the posted 25 mph limit. to serve a larger geographic footprint. it out.

When the riders disappeared from sight, The app takes payment through a credit Taking care to avoid the racers, I the crowd followed the action through a card, offering a choice between $3 per made my way to the Fourth and Trade live feed that tracked their progress on a hour or a $30 annual membership.

Street station. I found Ben and Lindsey route that swung around Salem College Riders are free to drop off bikes at any Schwab checking out bikes to follow the and rounded back up Marshall Street of the nine stations, but are responsible race. They had taken out bikes previbefore detouring into the Burke Street for securing them after the end of each ously when the service was launched on area and returning on Fourth Street. ride.

May 26, and we’re looking forward to Zagster’s new bike share in WinWhile I was pushing one of the bikes becoming regular users. ston-Salem currently includes a fleet through the crowd at Bailey Park, Brian “I’m definitely very excited that it’s of 50 bikes distributed to nine different Soper excitedly pointed the machine out here in Winston-Salem,” Ben said. “I’ve stations, primarily in downtown, but to his wife. used this in other cities. I think it’s a with two more peripheral sites at the “We used it in Chattanooga last great step in building bike culture.”

Gateway YWCA on South Main Street weekend,” he said. “We were from out The couple lives in the West Salem and Salem Lake to the east. Burczyk of town. It was easy to jump on.” neighborhood, and they could easily said during Phase 2 of the project he Noting that he lives in the suburbs of imagine commuting to work. Ben works Winston-Salem, Soper said using the at the Arts For Art’s Sake building on bike-share to commute to work wouldn’t North Liberty Street and Lindsey works make much sense for him, but he could in the Innovation Quarter. The Gateimagine that visitors to the city would way YWCA station — a focal point find the service a convenient way to get in the midst of Salem College, UNC around downtown without worrying School of the Arts, Washington Park about the hassle of parking. and West Salem — is close to their The bikes are a fairly comfortable house. The new Long Branch Trail, a ride, with women-friendly frames, pedestrian and bike path repurposed ample front basket space, and a simple from a raised rail bed south of Krank5-speed twist gear-shift installed on the ies, provides a conduit from the Gateright handlebar. Winston-Salem’s hills way YWCA station via Rams Drive and can be an arduous climb, especially if East Salem Avenue. you’re accustomed to a 10-speed, and Ben said the bike-share program I found myself walking some of them, would accommodate about three

(336) 723-7239

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quarters of his commute, while Lindsey said she’s looking forward to using the service when Business 40 closes for renovation later this year.

“It’s important to our city to locate stations in neighborhoods around downtown to build that connectedness,” she said.

When completed, Long Branch Trail will extend to the north end of the Innovation Quarter. For the present moment, it picks up at a trailhead off East Third Street. The ample width, lighting and landscaping makes the trail and pleasant and un-stressful ride, with a postcard view of the skyline to the west, including the Reynolds Building, Winston Tower and Forsyth County Government Center. As a car-free connector to the neighborhoods south of the city, the trail makes the Gateway YWCA a logical choice as one of the first outlying stations. The trail deposits riders onto Rams Drive at its southern terminus, providing connectivity to Winston-Salem State University to the east and Salem College to the west.

In addition to serving as a hub for two institutions of higher learning and two neighborhoods, the YWCA also holds a location on the Salem Creek Greenway, which runs almost four miles east to the bike-share station at Salem Lake.

While the service was affordable and convenient, my experience provides one note of caution. The phone app tracks the time charged for use, and unfortunately while I was fumbling to try to figure out how to end my ride at the Fourth and Trade station, my phone died. I wound up driving back to Greensboro while the clock was running by before I was able to charge my phone at home and close out my ride. Luckily, a customer service representative readily agreed to waive the last hour. Bike share programs in cities like Denver automatically close out the ride once the bike is returned to a station, avoiding such issues.

On a more heartening note, when I left my bike at the Fourth and Trade station at 4:30 p.m., six out of eight were checked out. It’s evident Winston-Salem residents have embraced the bike share.

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

Open season on journalists As journalists ourselves, we’d like to think that US House candidate Greg Gianforte’s election victory on Thursday — the morning after he bodyslammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs in front of a roomful of witnesses — is an outlier.

There are extenuating circumstances, to be sure: Of the 700,000 or so registered Montanans, almost 260,000 of them had already voted due to the state’s generous absentee-voting policy, about 70 percent of the people who voted overall. Gianforte won by 23,000 votes.

He was charged with assault the night before his election, and he admitted his crime a couple days later, but not before he denied it on election night.

But it’s tough not to take it personally these days, when our president has called journalists the “enemy of the people” and, at his political rallies before his election, journalists were routinely harassed, and sometimes physically assaulted. A Time photographer was slammed to the ground at a Trump rally in Radford, Va. by a Secret Service agent. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, shoved a reporter from Breitbart, of all outlets.

Since Trump has ascended to the presidency, a West Virginia reporter, Dan Heyman, was arrested while attempting to ask Health & Human Services Director Tom Price a question about the GOP healthcare bill, the same one Jacobs was asking Gianforte about. And just this week, the windows were shot out at the Lexington Herald-Leader.

It’s hard to watch the rising tide of defenders to Gianforte’s behavior, both in Republican media circles — Rush Limbaugh called Jacobs a “pajama boy” — and on social media, where journalists of late have been subject to all forms of harassment.

Ask WRAL’s Laura Leslie why she doesn’t check her Twitter anymore.

They seem to think we deserve it. Because we’re the enemy of the people.

But hostility towards journalists is not only a common symptom of all dictatorships. It’s downright un-American.

There’s nothing more patriotic than vigorously questioning candidates and elected officials about their views on the issues, or inspecting the functions of government as they play out in the real world.

The GOP can crow about the Second Amendment all day, but even a strict Constitutionalist must acknowledge that the First Amendment supersedes all.

CITIZEN GREEN

Reaching drug users where they already are

In the beginning, Louise Beale recent cookout and open house at Urban Survivors, Vincent Vincent operated a clean syringe held forth on her view that conventional treatment programs exchange out of her home, but since harm addicts by isolating them and reinforcing a sense of she was occasionally using heroin shame. Two women gravitated to her orbit. After listening herself, the police failed to apprefor a couple minutes, one of the women, wearing a zippered ciate the social service function of hoodie and a cross around her neck, felt emboldened to the project and raided the house she speak.

by Jordan Green shares with her 75-year-old mother.

“I was on Rock 92 for a couple years for being the biggest Vincent is a pioneer in the con artist in Greensboro for approaching people in parking harm-reduction movement in Greensboro, part of a statelots,” she said. “It wasn’t like I was selling my body; I was just wide network that has sprung up over the past decade to asking for money.” provide drug users with clean needles, distribute Naloxone “We feel really s***ty about everything,” Vincent respondto reverse overdoses and offer free testing for HIV and ed. “I would tell myself this has got to stop. Then I would use Hepatitis C. a s***load of drugs to feel better.”

“We had Naloxone early on,” Vincent recalled. “We got Across the state people like Vincent are cultivating gena small supply from a source in Chicago before anyone had uine relationships with users to literally save lives by making heard about it. If we got a call about an overdose we jumped sure they have clean needles when they inject drugs, and in the car and our crew drove over there. It was renegade distributing Naloxone kits to reverse overdoses. The Urban early on. I was actively using at the time.”

Survivors storefront on Grove Street is one among a handful By the summer of 2016, around the time the state General of important staging areas across the state that help reach Assembly passed legislation legalizing needle exchanges, users from the cities to the most rural counties.

Vincent’s outfit Urban Survivors Union had set up shop in an “Vance County is a distribution hub for heroin,” said Loftin office park upstairs from the Guilford County Democratic Wilson, who conducts HIV and Hepatitis C testing at Urban Party headquarters on Meadowview Road in Greensboro.

Survivors and works at a needle exchange in Durham. “It’s It wasn’t a great fit: The party volunteers weren’t all that economically depressed. The choices are to move out, sell thrilled to see people carrying boxes of syringes through the heroin or work at Walmart. People come there to buy heroin, building while they were trying to conduct voter registration so there are a lot of overdoses. drives, Vincent said. By November, Urban Survivors had re“We flooded that county with Naloxone,” he continued. located to its current location, a storefront on Grove Street next to the Peoples’ Market & Gardens in Glenwood.

Vincent’s aim with Urban Survivors is to empower drug users to make decisions about their lives and their health.

“I give someone some Naloxone — they come back and they say, ‘You’re never going to believe this,’” Vincent said.

“I say, ‘I bet I do.’ They say, ‘It wasn’t more than five minutes after they overdosed; they came right back.’ They say, ‘I did something. I’m not this piece of s***.’ It feels good to hear people say, ‘Louise, you’ve affected so many people in a good way.’ Because I’ve been hearing for years about all the people I’ve affected in a negative way.”

Wearing a T-shirt declaring JORDAN GREEN Louise Beale Vincent started distributing clean needles from her “No more drug war” during a home, but now runs a legally-sanctioned operation in Glenwood.

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of jokes on Rock 92 got up to take a cell phone call, and Vincent went to check on a volunteer who was grilling hamburgers and hotdogs behind the building.

“If they would use us, we could fix the world,” Vincent said. “Give us a project with a prize at the end, and we could come up with the solution for the world’s economy.”

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“We did outreach in pawnshops. I love doing outreach in rural areas. In Durham, you can pretty much show up at a street corner and find people.

It’s a little more challenging in a rural area. You have to be tapped into people’s kinship networks.”

The most effective outreach is done by people with close connection to addiction, said Robert Childs, executive director of NC Harm Reduction.

“Now we’re shifting to having people who are Clean syringes directly affected be our primary Naloxone distributors — people who have lost a kid or somebody who is still a drug user,” Childs said. “We were using public health nerds, but we’re shifting away from that.”

“They’re eager, but not so effective,” Wilson added. “Creating a rapport — not so much.”

The woman who had been the butt

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Cover Story

eard h s y a Ke was an i c i l ist. re A rguson t r o f a e b e ed Long anessa F respect her, V ationally n inteorrdan Green

by J

L

et’s get one thing straight: Alicia Keys did not discover Vanessa Ferguson.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s something magical about watching Keys, one of four recording artists who serve as coaches on NBC’s “The Voice” for Ferguson’s March 14 blind audition for the show. During the first chorus of Ferguson’s rendition of the Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” Keys looked transported. Then she grimaced, as if suddenly realizing, Oh my God, this singer is good, and pounded a button with both hands that swiveled her chair so that she faced Ferguson. There would be other moments

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music scene, her biography reveals few detours from a musical vocation.

Ferguson was raised by her grandmother, Doris McCrae, in Brooklyn, NY. McCrae, known as Mommy Doris — who was born in North Carolina and ran away from home to be a singer in New York at the age of 13 — paid for her granddaughter’s piano lessons. Ferguson had sung in church before, but her first R&B performance was a rendition of Lauryn Hill’s version of “Killing Me Softly” during a school talent show when Ferguson was in fifth grade.

“That’s the first show where everybody went crazy,” Ferguson recalled.

“That was the start of me singing and taking it serious.”

In 1997, Ferguson moved to North Carolina with her grandmother. She started performing professionally with a band in Winston-Salem called — if her memory is correct — Intrigue.

By the time Ferguson was 18, she’d played a number of solo gigs accompanying herself on the keyboard and joined Untitled, a Greensboro band led by Gavin “Gav Beats” Williams.

During her first year at A&T, Ferguson developed endometriosis, a painful chronic condition, and was hospitalized for much of the academic year. Because she’d missed so much class time, she said, she didn’t see the point of going back to school. When Ferguson left A&T, Trice told her about his vision for Solcetfre.

Ferguson met her future fiancé Kenneth Fuller — aka Mr. Rozzi — in 2007, when Fuller attended a Solcetfre Project show with an interest in managing Jeremy Johnson as a solo artist. Johnson, an irrepressible dude with a sexually ambiguous persona, introduced Ferguson to Fuller by saying in jest: “This is my beautiful wife.”

Since the breakup of Solcetfre Project, Ferguson has worked continuously as a performer and recording artist, both solo and in tandem with Fuller. As a working musician, she’s sang contemporary covers for a wide array of audiences in Greensboro, from the upscale drinking crowd at Churchill’s on Elm to old-school R&B listeners at Boston’s House of Jazz and several iterations of A&T students at Aggie Fest.

A multifaceted artist who plays

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when the mentor’s emotional connection synced with her protégé, as on April 10 when Ferguson took Gladys Knight’s “If I Were Your Woman” to sublime heights of emotional fragility and Keys punctuated the command performance with a triumphal, “Yeaah-ah!”

Ten years ago, in Greensboro, a vocal instructor at NC A&T University named William Trice decided to put together a neo-soul super group.

A former “American Idol” contestant, Trice knew he had ability as a vocalist and songwriter, but the experience also taught him that he had a knack for spotting talent, arranging music and convening artists. He figured that with four artists sharing a platform as equals they could support one another and each would stand a better chance of breaking out. One of the first singers Trice selected to join the group that would be called Solcetfre Project was Vanessa Ferguson, a former student with a striking sense of self-possession and slightly sarcastic manner.

The group lasted for less than a year, but it served its purpose. Each member carved out a distinct persona — Trice as the gruff teddy bear, Jeremy Johnson as the effervescent dynamo and Leticia “Boogie B” Bowler as sweet and wise diva. Ferguson was the quietest, but Trice was quick to say that her song, “With You,” was the single for the group’s album, Fel Fre. Strip away stage presence, instrumental gloss and performance vamp from Solcetfre’s album release party at Greene Street Club in Greensboro in October 2007, and one of the lasting impressions was Trice quieting the band as Ferguson strapped on an acoustic guitar to deliver the smoldering ballad. The lyrics of “With You” — “The kiss from your lips made me wish you’d stayed” — enunciated in delicate jazz phrasing, made the song sound timeless.

There isn’t much doubt that Ferguson was meant to sing. Unique among her peers in the Greensboro

“The Voice” catapulted Vanessa Ferguson to national prominence, but she’s been performing internationally for years.

Ferguson prepares to go on stage for her semi-final performance, a rendition of Luther Vandross’ “Superstar.”

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Cover Story

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guitar and keyboards, Ferguson’s YouTube presence is testament to her determination to push her creative development forward.

The official video for “I Got What the Game Needs,” released in 2013, reveals an artist chafing at narrow genre constraints, with a shredding electric guitar solo setting the tone at the beginning. Mixing vocals and rap, the song represents a manifesto from a talent unwilling to be pigeonholed as an R&B torch singer as well as a plaintive appeal to a music industry that tends to compartmentalize musicians rather than allow them to realize their full artistry.

“What’s up, NY, What’s up NC? Y’all stuck with me,” Ferguson declares. “Why has the game gone this way?/ Don’t worry no more/ I’ve got something in store/ One more thing to say: The industry should get used to me/ ’Cause I’m never going away.”

In 2011, Ferguson worked for several months in China, including a booking for six nights a week at the Lan Club in Beijing, a facility the size of a football field. Fuller joined her for part of the time.

The relatively high pay and low cost of the city gave Ferguson and her fiancé access to a standard of living that many working musicians in the United States could scarcely imagine.

“Easy job,” Ferguson said in a 2016 interview. “I love the location. It’s like New York, but twice as big.

We could eat cheap. We were like rich.”

Ferguson leveraged her experience in China into a gig with the BB King All Stars on an international tour with stops in Europe, the Caribbean and South America.

By the time Ferguson auditioned for “The Voice” and floored audiences across the United States with her electrifying performance of the “Don’t Let Me Down” in March 2017, she was a seasoned performer. The star-making mythology of shows like “The Voice” can promote the illusion that the contestants come out of nowhere.

“It’s how the game goes, I guess,” Ferguson said with typical humility in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. “There are plenty of talented people in America that don’t get the proper recognition and don’t get the opportunity to be on a big platform.

“It’s more difficult in America,” she continued.

“You reach a certain level of success and notoriety.

Before doing this show, I’ve been able to reach that overseas, but there was no notoriety in my own country other than on the East Coast. It was definitely a problem. Someone needs to make some changes, for sure. Hopefully, this show will be a part of that and will cause people to look at their local artists that are great if they ever get an opportunity to be on a grand stage. There’s no lack of talent, that’s for sure.”

Ferguson sang the author’s wedding reception in the atrium at the Greensboro Cultural Center in 2010.

Here the story gets personal. Everyone familiar with my journalistic MO knows I hate to break the spell by interjecting myself into the story. But there’s no way around this.

I got to know Vanessa Ferguson more through collateral associations than direct contact. As a music writer in the Triad, I reached out to Jeremy Johnson, a former public school teacher turned singer, after hearing an interview with him on 103.1 FM WUAG, the campus station at UNCG. I wrote a story about Johnson as a solo artist in 2006, and then in 2007, likely at Johnson’s instigation, William Trice approached me about doing a story on Solcetfre Project, which first exposed me to Ferguson’s music. Roughly a year later, when Johnson put together an extravaganza at Greene Street Club to celebrate the release of a new solo album, Ferguson performed a warm-up set, and I remember encountering her mother wearing a summer dress and beaming with pride at the favorable response the crowd lavished on her daughter’s performance.

I bumped into Ferguson occasionally after that — a friendly hello after a performance at the Fun Fourth Festival in downtown Greensboro, a chance encounter during a late-night set when she wowed my work buddies with a rendition of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” — but for the most part I lost track of her. Part of that has to do with taking a hiatus from music writing from 2009 through 2014.

In 2010, Johnson, who had relocated to Atlanta to pursue music, contacted me. I can’t remember the format, but while we were catching up, I happened to mention that I was planning to get married.

A couple weeks later he contacted me again,

LARRY GREEN

and told me he was going to perform at my wedding. I gently tried to discourage the idea, informing him that my fiancé and I didn’t have a budget to pay for a band. But he wouldn’t be dissuaded, insisting it had nothing to do with money and he wouldn’t take any payment.

I think he mentioned that he was going to see if he could find any other musicians in Greensboro to join him for the performance. Beyond possibly putting Johnson in touch with the DJ we hired for the wedding so he could arrange to borrow her PA, I don’t think we discussed it any further.

When the big day came, Jeremy Johnson showed up with Vanessa Ferguson to sing at my wedding. I’m afraid that the performance is a pleasant blur to me, but my uncle, Larry, has pictures to prove that it happened. I’m slightly mortified that I don’t retain distinct memories of the event. From the best of my recollection, when I realized they were singing I went to look for my newlywed to alert her, and ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years and got caught up in a conversation. Yet the gesture of making music to celebrate Cheryl’s and my wedding by two talented artists is a gift I will forever cherish.

Ferguson never reminded me of the performance or used it to try to call in a favor. I asked her recently to tell me the motivation behind what strikes me as a singularly generous and unselfish act.

“I do some things because it’s the human that I am,” she told me. “I believe we’re all here to help each other. We have different gifts for the betterment of everyone. I help people. Some of the things are public, and some of the things are private that nobody even knows about.”

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are all important to me.”

The interaction between Ferguson and the four Every contest is an artificial construct in celebrity coaches following her blind audition a sense because life — and, in Ferguson’s for “The Voice” reveals both her ecumenical case, a music career — continues regardattitude towards music and a soul sisterhood less of whether triumph or defeat ensues. with fellow New Yorker Alicia Keys.

Ferguson wound up being eliminated from Her rapport with Blake Shelton, an affable the show on May 16 after failing to garner country singer who exemplifies the Nashville enough votes to make the final four. (The dichotomy of un-ironic romanticism and banal ultimate winner, a singer from Knoxville, beer-and-pickup-trucks swagger, was warm from Tenn. named Chris Blue, was also a memthe outset. ber of Team Alicia.)

When Ferguson informed him that she was from Ferguson said her next move will probaGreensboro, Shelton rejoined, “It’s the home of bly be to record an album or an EP. Wrangler. Didja know that?”

“I’m also working on doing a huge He continued: “I am probably not the guy that you production with lighting, costumes, dancing were thinking, ‘Man, Blake would be a great coach for and the whole thing,” she said. “I’ll get me,’ but —” whoever of my friends are able to do it.

“That’s not true,” Ferguson interrupted.

It’s primarily going to be me because it’s The country singer got up and ran a victory lap my show, but it will have a lot of different around his chair. things going on. It’s not just going to be a In hindsight, Shelton didn’t have a chance. regular show with a band; it will be a full-on “Vanessa, it’s so great to hear you sing and to vibe production.” with you,” said Keys, an R&B singer from Manhattan In the meantime, with hometown pride who scored her first hit in 2001. “I love your song and love welling up for Ferguson, the city choice. I love the way you put your spin on it.” of Greensboro is hosting a block party at “I’m from New York, originally,” Ferguson, said with Center City Park at midday on Saturday, mock exasperation, almost as if it should be obvious and that evening she’ll perform a free conwhy Keys was vibing. cert at Barber Park as a kind of thank-you “I can imagine what I’m going to discover about gift to her local fans. you in regards to the other talents that you have, your Jesse Larson, the soulful, bearded story, and what you’re going to bring to the world, Minnesotan who made it to the finals of COURTESY NBC you know? ’Cause that’s what it’s about,” Keys added. the 2017 season, reflected on Ferguson in Vanessa Ferguson sings Stevie Wonder’s As a longtime fan who has interpreted the older a comment on the show: “There’s so much “For Once In My Life” in early May. singer’s pieces, the working relationship only conmore to Vanessa that America has not seen firmed what Ferguson already felt about her connecyet.” might be a little too much to me to show that’s hard tion with Keys.

As the name implies, “The Voice” necessarily to fit into nine or 10 performances.”

“She’s a lot like me — very reduces music artists to one As testament that “The Voice” is neither the bestrong willed yet very loving facet of their overall artistry. ginning nor the end of a music career as layered and and open-minded,” Ferguson Dressed in a red gown as established as Ferguson’s, she popped up on April 1 in The city of Greensboro hosts said. “Knows what she wants, she delivered an authorithe midst of taping for the show for a surprise guest a Vanessa Ferguson Block doesn’t take no for an answer. tative rendition of Luther appearance with blues guitarist Eric Gales at the Blue Party on Saturday from 11 We really are ‘kindred spirits.’

Vandross’ “Superstar,” Note Grill in Durham. Dressed in plain black turtleThose are her words. But I’ve Ferguson proved during the neck, Ferguson gave a tender and affecting rendition a.m. to 1 p.m. at Center City always felt that. She reiterMay 15 semifinals that she of her song “With U” with Gales accompanying her Park, where the singer will be ated a lot of things with me, meets the requirements of on guitar on an arrangement they’d worked out earlier joined by Shelby J, Abyss, Tim things like being yourself is a classic soul diva, but she in the day in the break room at the Guitar Center in Jackson and Sybil. Then, at 6 important, which is something also stretched the show’s Greensboro. p.m., Ferguson performs with I’ve always believed and lived boundaries by mixing rap Even though her run on “The Voice” wasn’t comaccording to that.” and vocals in her cover of Nishah Dimeo and R’Mone plete, she’d already triumphed.

The lessons in the working the Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop “Vanessa, as you see, I was going crazy losing my Entonio at Barber Park (1500 relationship went beyond mu(That Thing)” the previous mind jumping up and down like a lunatic,” Keys told Dans Road, GSO) as part of the sic, and Keys imparted some week. her after her semi-final performance of “Superstar.”

Levitt Amp Greensboro Music of her holistic philosophy “Me coming out and “But because I know what you went through to find Series. Both events are free. about life to Ferguson. rapping was such a big deal this beautiful place and for you to just uncover your“I’m learning to be and not because it had never been self in this way and really, really see you completely, do all the time,” Ferguson done before,” Ferguson and I feel like you are blooming and blossoming and said. “I believe in that said. “There was a lot more opening, becoming just unafraid of your greatness a lot. I have a career. I love what I do. I also to me as an artist than I was able to show. There were and the phenomenal woman that you are.” love what I am. I am a stepmom. I’m a some things I didn’t get to reveal such as playing the fiancé. I’m a granddaughter. Those things guitar. I wanted to pick up a bass on one song. There

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16

CULTURE A country classic, simple and Southern

by Eric Ginsburg

A

s she walked swiftly towards the door, the woman — a complete stranger — leaned over the low side to our booth and remarked, “You’re missing the fashion show back there.”

Confused, it took me a minute to realize that she was referring to a scene I hadn’t noticed unfolding over my pal Anthony’s shoulder, out the wide windows along the side of Country BBQ. Crouched in front of a small shed — with its brilliant pink walls acting as a backdrop — a twentysomething woman with hair past her shoulders modeled for a camera in her underwear. A parking lot alongside the busy thoroughfare that is Wendover Avenue hardly seems like the right place for what could’ve been a boudoir shoot, until you recall that this barbecue joint stands in the shadow of the towering Christie’s Cabaret strip-club complex.

But Greensboro’s Country BBQ isn’t exactly a lively place on a Friday night — no music played, and by the time we left around 8:40, the servers were already packing it in, talking about showering to wash off the barbecue smell before going out that night.

Country BBQ matches a certain brand of Carolina Southerness, an Americana made of dark wood, brick walls, wax paper, slow-cooked meat and a whole mess of sugar. The restaurant is of a piece with Stamey’s, and like the more well known ’cue purveyor, there’s a drive-thru. Even if you dine in, a plate or sandwich of chopped pork and satisfying slaw arrives before your conversation has moved beyond the basic pleasantries.

It’s not as country as Wink’s in Salisbury, as diner-esque as Short Sugar’s in Reidsville, as divey as Boss Hog’s in Greensboro or as flashy as Little Richard’s in Winston-Salem. Country BBQ is more inviting than Hill’s, more open and sunlit than Allen & Son, slower paced than Pik-N-Pig. That is to say it’s somewhat middleof-the-road, the kind of place where I watched our server put great care into drawing and shading a pig on the chalkboard, where you can still get a filling sandwich smashed between whitebread buns for less than $4, and where someone will actually take your order tableside instead of at the counter.

That is to say that its appeal is in its

unremarkable-ness, that I felt tempted to order more despite filling up on ’cue and hushpuppies, and that the food is good but not great.

Anthony would dispute the last claim. I watched him stir the tableside sauce — dark and overly peppered — into his pork, making sure it kissed each bite before he lifted it to his mouth. I squirted a little onto a hushpuppy and determined I was glad the sauce hadn’t come on my sandwich.

But Anthony is a Southerner, and a Greensboro native to boot, the kind of guy who has a story about a friend’s dad picking up dinner for them from Country BBQ on the way home ERIC GINSBURG Sometimes you just need a good plate of barbecue, complete with a massive from soccer practice, or somehelping of slaw. thing a little trite like that. And I, in turn, am a convert, a yankee Yet here emerges the problem with any claims I might make born and raised on the idea that barbecue is a verb rather than to being an impartial outsider with clear vision: I’ve been living a noun and who almost never ate pork at home. So make of in the Old North State for more than a decade. Maybe I’m a that what you will. latecomer, but that doesn’t mean each barbecue meal has You could argue that these facts make Anthony more been emotionless or scientific. Hardly. knowledgeable, but I could also make I’d probably rank Smiley’s BBQ third the case that my judgment isn’t clouded among the places I’ve tried in North by nostalgia. I’m guided by my palate, Carolina, but I’m sure that’s influenced Visit Country BBQ at 4012 W. I’d claim, unencumbered by the barbeby the fact that it’s in the mecca of Lexcue battle lines that cross this state.

Wendover Ave. (GSO), 3921 ington and that someone took my order And really, there’s some truth to both while I sat in my car. Short Sugar’s was Sedgebrook St. (HP) or at perspectives. the last stop on a multi-leg BBQ roadtrip country-bbq.com.

That said, I’d rank Country BBQ someI took. And people talked up Allen & where between Stamey’s and Prissy PolSon and Country BBQ so much before I ly’s in Kernersville. Boss Hog’s is a little went that I likely expected a particularly dumpy, but the ’cue is on point, and all things being equal I’d sublime meal at the two institutions. rather reach for their barbecue sandwich and their hushpupBut the truth about good barbecue is that it’s simple. Sure, pies. Same goes for Mr. BBQ, and maybe Bib’s, too. there are intricacies of how it’s prepared, and what goes into Short Sugar’s claims the top spot on my list, and I can honthe slaw. There’s something unique about every barbecue estly say the homemade barbecue my girlfriend’s dad cooks in joint, whether or not there’s a photo shoot happening outside.

Durham belongs not too far behind.

But we come because we know what to expect, and we like it.

I watched a server at Country BBQ dump almost a whole bag of sugar into a pitcher, filling it up about halfway, pausing, and then adding about a cup more.

That’s just how it’s done, which is why pros like Anthony cut his sweet tea with unsweetened tea and why I go ahead and order a cup anyway.

A part of him might’ve gone to connect with his past and a part of me might’ve gone to feel a part of this Southern brand.

But more than anything we did not go to be blown away or surprised, instead showing up for some good, reliable barbecue.

And that’s exactly what we got.

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They shall know me by my barware

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My penchant for donating paid off recently when I packed up our glassware to move for the first time in nearly a decade.

Of course, there was even more to give away; I’d told myself I’d wear every piece of costume jewelry I own while sipping from red goblets I’d bought in Salem, Va., and I did, once. But for the most part our core collection, the stuff that balances emotional significance and practicality, remains intact.

I set it all out on the kitchen counter of our new rental house, like a host preparing for an elaborate dinner party.

It felt strangely comforting seeing it all at once, the myriad shapes and uses. It’s psychological, I know: I drank expensive wine out of a faded Ruby Tuesday kid’s cup in our old kitchen, and the taste was no different.

But there’s something about a pour of scotch in a snifter, the amber sparkle, the way my palm cups the base. Or a long inhale of blackcurrant and tobacco from a red wine glass, the first sip, the imagined Napa breeze cooling my pretentious brow.

We’re traveling to California and Oregon for the first time on Saturday. I promise I’ll come back, if only for my barware.

Culture

N

ine years is a long time to live in a place, particularly when it’s not yours but especially when you think it’s only temporary.

Long after I thought I’d be living on the West Coast, tooling through New Mexico and California before settling into organic, off-grid and probably not

by Kat Bodrie disease-free living in Oregon, I was still in Winston-Salem, within walking distance of Starbucks and Burger King.

I made the best of it, cozying up to management at my local Mexican joint, blowing my meager teacher’s income at World Market. Eventually, I started writing for Winston-Salem Monthly, and for some reason they thought it was a good idea to throw me the wine column.

In the meantime, my barware collection multiplied like Gizmo. I managed to accumulate two sets of white-wine glasses, one stemmed, one stemless, from Disney World; fancy redwine bubble glasses as a Christmas present from relatives; various square and round rocks glasses, promotional items from liquor boxes; and a gazillion complimentary tasting glasses from area wineries.

My now-husband’s dowry to the marriage included cocktail and champagne glasses, two-ounce shot glasses, cocktail shaker and related accoutrements and more rocks glasses.

Our massive bar area displayed backlit bottles and glasses hanging underneath one of the shelves — an illusion that our barware did not also extend into three kitchen cabinets.

I tried somewhat futilely to cull it into a manageable amount, not because we were moving but because I had a diminishing tolerance for stuff just sitting around. Like Evaristo at Papa Nacho’s, Goodwill employees practically knew me by first name.

KAT BODRIE

Cover Story

The author’s barware collection represents a decade of living and drinking in the Triad.

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion

S

tephen King once said that the most brilliant ideas happen when two unlikely things come together. It is a common struggle for bands and musicians to find the right people to play with, capture the right sound they hear in their heads and make all of the little pieces align. Many musicians chase dreams of perfection; they practice and practice, trying to create sounds never before heard. But sometimes, this dream of perfection comes when least expected. It comes out of nowhere and all you can do is abide.

“It was last summer, I guess,” Bjorn Jacobsen said. “I was playing a set at the old tiki bar. And Francois was playing too. We’d gotten done with the show and were just hanging out, and Joe [Blevins] came up to us and just said, ‘You know, you two should really play a show together sometime.’”

Not even a year since Jacobsen and Francois Byers took Blevins up on the idea, the duo has already made a name for themselves; not only in the Triad,

Sportsball

Culture

Cover Story

CULTURE Unlikely duo reach rare level of perfection

by Spencer KM Brown

All Showtimes @ 9:00pm unless specified differently

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5/31 Karaoke! with Michael Ray Hansen

10 PM

6/1 Coda Cutlass/Unhenged/Divine

Treachery/JD Power & The Associates

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6/2 Gallery Hop Art Swap! 7 PM

The Wasnots 8 PM

6/3 Flummox / Matt Walsh 6/6 Needle Points - Yin Yang Eyes Tour

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8 PM

18

701 N Trade Street Winston-Salem, NC 27101

(336)955-1888

but up and down the East Coast. But there is something different about the duo. Rarely do they indulge in gratuitous self-promotion on social media and place the entirety of their energy on performing. A Bjorn & Francois show comes about, and most often, it becomes word-of-mouth promotion almost entirely; those who have seen the duo play before, share what has become the group’s most popular selling-point among fans: You just have to see it for yourself. And the May 24 show at the new Monstercade bar in Winston-Salem did not disappoint.

The walls of the tiny Washington Park bar are lined with retro arcade games — Street Fighter, Pac Man and others.

Black lights shine down from the ceiling and everything glows ultraviolet.

Singer-songwriter Joe Blevins opened the evening, warming the crowd for what was to come. Blevins’ music ranges in style from a smooth Van Morrison-esque edginess, into more smooth- Bjorn & Francois perform at Monstercade in Winston-Salem.

SPENCER KM BROWN ly composed songs based around his fluent guitar skills. And as Blevins cal-dark-folk,” the band lives up to the wild descriptor. In a finished and the crowd disbursed for vein similar to the Doors’ dark melodies, the group blends another round of drinks or a quick cigarette, Bjorn & Francois Byers’ classically trained piano style with that of Jacobsen’s took the stage. The bar was mostly empty, most of the crowd traveling, “gypsy” melodies, soldering together two unlikely talking and smoking with friends outside, as Jacobsen tuned genres to make for a hypnotic and truly authentic sound. up his ragged, road-worn guitar and Byers adjusted levels on “Yeah, I guess the two don’t really have anything in comhis keyboard. And without announcement, it began. mon on their own,” Byers said. “But they somehow do when Jacobsen’s croon carried through the bar and out of the their offspring meet, and I guess that’s what we’ve found.” open door, as smooth and startling as silk handkerchief being Song after song, the pair proved the expanse of their selfdrawn from a pocket. As the duo played, cigarettes were dubbed genre, taking pride in the ability to shatter the popular stubbed out half smoked and the crowd filed in to watch. notion of remaining in a single, united pattern; a daring underThough some have compared his vocals to Tom Waits — a taking, yet one they have seemingly mastered. dark, gritty voice with the ease and power of a crooner — JaWhile at one moment they showcased the guitar melodies cobsen’s tone and style are formed from an entirely different and patterns that revealed Jacobsen’s early obsession with old mode.

Louisiana blues and the aggressive estam style of traditional “When I was living in New Orleans, I was busking on the Romani music, the very next moment held Byers’ beautiful, sidewalks during the day to make some extra cash,” Jacobsen sad melodies which called to mind Chopin’s nocturnes. said. “And this Hispanic family walked past and the dad said The intimate camaraderie between the two musicians, while to me, ‘You need more style, man, you need to be bigger. Play not overt, could be sensed in the music. Neatly crafted chords some reggaetón, man.’ And so I wrote a song about that and and layered melodies pouring out from the instruments, sort of found a style all my own.” making both Jacobsen and Byers constantly aware of what Self-described as “delta-gypsy-grass and theatrithe other is playing. The irony of this show was that, while the crowd was quite literally surrounded by video games and any Pick of the Week number of distractions, all attention was held perfectly on the stage, as if a spell were compelling eyes and ears — only all Vanessa Ferguson @ Barber Park (GSO), Saturday 6 p.m. was controlled by the music.

Kicking off the first of the 10-concert Levitt Amp series, “Yeah, I don’t think about it all that much,” Jacobsen said, Vanessa Ferguson — a semifinalist on NBC’s “The Voice” referring to the duo’s dynamic. “Since we started playing, it — performs along with R’Mone Entonio and Nisha DiMeo. just clicked and we haven’t questioned it. Either Francois will Preyer Brewing, Grove Winery and food trucks will be on bring a melody to practice or I’ll show him something I wrote, site. This event is free. For more information, visit the Arts and it all comes about really easily. It’s never happened like Greensboro Facebook event page. that before.”

triad-city-beat.com

CULTURE Boomerang brings back the book bus

“

Up Front News Opinion

Diarra “Crckt” Leggett opened the mobile Boomerang Bookshop: Nomad Chapter after he realized he couldn’t afford to buy Empire Books, the independent store where he worked.

Crossword Monday Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz 7:30 Tuesday Live music with Piedmont Old Time Society Old Time music and Bluegrass 7:30

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Wednesday Live music with J Timber and Joel Henry with special guests 8:30

Thursday Beer and baseball Friday, Saturday, Sunday BEER joymongers.com | 336-763-5255 576 N. Eugene St. | Greensboro

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L’Opera: The Paris Opera @ Aperture Cinema (W-S), Tuesday June 6, 6 p.m.

This documentary provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Paris Opera, highlighting commentary from management, performers and costumers. L’Opera provides a glimpse into everything that goes into running one of the world’s leading performing-arts institutions. For more info, visit aperturecinema.com.

SPREADING JOY ONE PINT AT A TIME

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radical politics from Walmart. I’d like to help fill that void.”

Culture

Patrons already appreciate the mobile’s unique value proposition.

“I think this is a fantastic opportunity to introduce literacy, especially in neighborhoods where there are not as many opportunities to just pop out to a bookstore,” said Lynne Buchanan, 45, of Greensboro. “Books are not as common a commodity as they used to be and we’re losing a lot of our bookstores. Unless you are in a climate where you’re apt to seek out books on Amazon… they’re not really available.”

Buchanan and Leggett, former co-workers at the Artery Gallery, both actively support a culture that appreciates physical texts.

“I think having the actual artifact of a book in your hand is a valuable experience as opposed to reading articles online,” she said. “There’s something about the tactile experience of a book and it’s been shown that we process information differently when we experience it on the page as opposed to on a screen.”

Often, the barriers to that experience are financial or residential.

“I’d like to promote literacy where people are… in communities where there aren’t really any bookstores,” Leggett said.

“You’re not going to be able to get any quality literature or

LAUREN BARBER

Cover Story

by Lauren Barber Books, the truest friends of man, fill this rolling caravan.”

Plucked from Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels, these words adorn the interior of Diarra Leggett’s new mobile bookstore, the Boomerang Bookshop: Nomad Chapter.

Last year, Leggett, known locally as Crckt (pronounced “cricket”), realized it wouldn’t be feasible to buy Empire Books, the independent store in Greensboro where he worked.

“I couldn’t afford a brick-and-mortar so…my wife offhandedly mentioned, ‘You should start a food truck,’ and I was like, ‘That might work.’ A couple weeks later, I went on Craigslist, typed in ‘bookmobile’ and this popped up so we jumped on it,” he said.

The Chapel Hill Public Library repurposed the bus as a bookmobile in the late 1980s and early ’90s before a couple used it as an on-the-go office for their auction house.

Leggett, 44, is also a collage artist and made the bus distinctly his own; the ceiling of his literary venture is plastered with dozens of loose pages.

The shop’s name and logo are unique, as well.

“Because a lot of the books are used, they go around and come back [like a boomerang],” he explained. “When we came up with the name Boomerang, I started looking into aboriginal art but it was too busy. My favorite movie of all time is probably The Road Warrior, and the feral kid is my favorite character so we tweaked [his image] a little bit.”

The child of a librarian, friends attest that Leggett is an unapologetic bookworm.

“I remember him reading Naked Lunch, and the teachers weren’t fond of him reading that in class,” said Stacy Jones, a former classmate. “He’s always been a reader and he’s always turned friends on to books and writers. It’s great to see he and [his wife] Elizabeth doing this.”

The Boomerang Bookshop parks at the Corner Farmer’s Market in the Lindley Park neighborhood on Saturday mornings and the Grove Street People’s Market in Glenwood on Thursday afternoons.

“I think it’s wonderful because there aren’t that many independent bookstores left and this is mobile so it can go around to where people are going to be like farmer’s markets or whatnot,” Jones said. “It gets books in kids’ and adults’ hands, and there are some unusual finds.”

Community members can sell, donate or trade in books on the bus. What Leggett can’t sell, he donates to the library at the Interactive Resource Center, a day center in Greensboro where people struggling with homelessness can access critical resources such as computer labs, showers and medical services.

The bookmobile made its eighth foray into the world at the Grove Street People’s Market last week.

“It’d be nice if it blossomed into something I could making a living at but… I imagine this year will be very experimental, seeing what works and what doesn’t,” Leggett said.

Leggett also works at the Kernersville Public Library in Forsyth County and formerly served as a literacy instructor with Reading Connections at the Guilford County Detention Center and throughout the broader community. His passion is “to serve the literary and academic needs and desires of greater Greensboro,” according to Boomerang’s Facebook page.

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May 31 – June 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword

R

oman Reigns had Bray Wyatt on the ropes — there was no doubt about that. For any hope of shelter from the gale of nonstop walloping, Wyatt required divine, shirtless intervention.

by Joel Sronce Enter Samoa Joe. Not long after Joe invaded the ring, he and Wyatt reversed the drubbing, mercilessly kicking the now-helpless Roman Reigns, who thrashed on the mat in agony.

But in roared Seth Rollins, ripping off his shirt and throwing it into the crowd before strutting to Reigns’ rescue. With a threat at once intimidating and geographically-savvy, he challenged Wyatt and Joe to an ultimate tag-team matchup: North Carolina style.

The crowd’s energy peaked; the night’s grand finale had begun.

More than 7,000 fans came to the Greensboro Coliseum for the WWE Live event on May 27. Throughout the thundering arena, many of the adults sat obediently while their kids shook their fists and screamed and took videos on their phones. Elsewhere sat patient children, looking on with embarrassment and a touch of panic as their caregivers shook their fists and screamed, fumbling for their own cameras.

The supporters’ enthusiasm and intimate knowledge, as well as the strong camaraderie between wrestler and fan, validated the spirit of the WWE and its many minions. But the ancient bloodthirst and malice spewing from both spectators and participants justified the event taking place at something called the coliseum.

Its discrepancies beg the question: What the hell is professional wrestling all about?

Traditionally, sports often draw audiences due to their competition and the lure of untold endings.

They engage spectators because their outcomes are distinctly unknown; will, luck and superhuman spontaneity produce conclusions.

Professional wrestling doesn’t carry these same qualities into the ring. While the audience isn’t certain who will win a match, its members possess the knowledge that a victor has been decided, even choreo-

PIZZERIA

graphed, beforehand.

In order for emotion — anger, fear, joy, surprise, defeat — to arise within the witness, a suspension of disbelief must precede each match.

For many traditional sports fans, this represents a leap they are unwilling to make. But what sets professional wrestling apart from other sports isn’t the event’s atmosphere, and certainly not the performers’ athletic ability. (In one skilled move that won him the contest, a wrestler front-flipped from the second-highest of the ropes that encircled the JOEL SRONCE The referee separates two wrestlers during a WWE Live tag-team ring and landed deftly match. on his own back atop his opponent — a move that match, Mickie James, Sasha Banks and Bayley defeated would put Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte to shame.)

Alexa Bliss, Nia Jax and Alicia Fox — a violent affair No, it’s the unique drama of the sport itself that many that provided all the intensity, athleticism and frenzy don’t consider. accompanying the men’s matches. Like Marvel’s Storm More than traditional contests, professional wresor Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, the wrestling pairs its athleticism with theatrical performance. tlers proved to many young women (and men) in the While some may sneer at the WWE in comparison to crowd that the roles of aggressive, fierce warriors don’t competitions with less predictable winners, those critneed to be off-limits to anyone. ics are isolating the athletic component of the event, As Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins battled Samoa ignoring the dramatic one.

Joe and Bray Wyatt at the end of the night, Reigns — a When we watch theater, film and drama, we underWWE veteran — emerged as the most polarizing figure stand that the characters we observe aren’t real. We at the event. Calls of “Let’s go, Roman,” mingled with know that actors lead very different lives from their “Roman sucks,” revealed the opinions of thousands fictional counterparts on the stage or screen; we know throughout the gym. (A clever young fellow in the they were told where to stand and what to say. Yet we stands insisted that jeers of “Roman noodle” — garstill laugh, cry, love, hate and glean knowledge and nished often with “chicken flavor” — would galvanize even experience from watching. We sometimes carry the audience. It didn’t, though he attempted hundreds those understandings into the rest of our lives. of times.)

So when a professional wrestler draws vigor, passion Reigns and Rollins, considered villains to many, and enmity from members of a crowd, they cheer not emerged victorious. But their detractors quickly scramfor a LeBron James, but a Han Solo. The wrestlers are bled as close to the ring as possible when the fight endheroes, villains, jesters, ed, as excited to get autographs, high-fives and selfies tyrants and commoners. as those who supported the victorious pair.

Whether or not their feats At the Greensboro Coliseum, when the fights were are sudden, improvised over and the lights came on, even the hated became and yet unknown to those heroes. around them doesn’t matter. Whether or not their fates are predetermined Pick of the Week doesn’t affect how worthy of respect, adoration or Greensboro Grasshoppers vs. Hagerstown Suns contempt they prove to be. @ First National Bank Field (GSO), Tuesday, 7 And besides, that’s just p.m. the men.

For the first in a three-game series, the GrassAfter intermission at hoppers take on the Hagerstown Suns, hopefully the Greensboro Coliseum, keeping a tight lid on the Suns’ winning season. For six women wrestlers took more information, visit gsohoppers.com. the ring. In a tag-team

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The hated become heroes at the Coliseum

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CROSSWORD ‘You Say You Want a Revolution”--it’s your turn.

by Matt Jones

Playing June 1 – 5 Friday Night Standup

8:30 p.m. Friday, June 2nd. Tickets $10

Cover Story

OTHER SHOWS Open Mic 8:30 p.m. Thurs., June 1st. $5 tickets!

Friday Night Open Mic Anyone Can Join In! 10 p.m. Fri., June 2nd. $8 tickets!

Family Improv 4 p.m. Sat., June 3rd. $6 Tickets!

Saturday Night Improv 8:30 p.m. & 10 pm. Sat, June 3rd. $10 tickets!

Monday Night Roast Battle 8:30 p.m. Mon., 5th. $5 tickets Discount tickets available @ Ibcomedy.yapsody.com

Opinion

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro idiotboxers.com • 336-274-2699

Culture

Down 1 Name in men’s watches 2 Made amends 3 Zeno’s followers 4 “Girl, Interrupted” character?

5 Blue matter 6 Quality of voice 7 Enclosed in 8 Labor leader Jimmy who mysteriously disappeared 9 ___ on thick (exaggerate) 10 Extravagant 11 Portuguese, by default 12 “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Leakes 13 “___ Yes!” (1970s political placard) 21 Way out there 22 Angler’s spear 27 Break apart

28 “Oops! ... ___ It Again” 29 Disco-era term meaning “galore” 31 Six-pointers, briefly 32 Saloth ___ (Pol Pot’s birth name) 33 Secondary result of a chemical reaction 34 Film director Kazan 35 The last U.S. president with a prominent ustache 36 X, of Twitch’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” marathon, e.g.

37 “Frizzle ___” (1990 Primus album) 38 Electric can openers and pencil sharpeners, e.g.

42 Guilty feeling 43 Nostalgic time, perhaps 46 Like porcelain dolls you just know are staring right at you 47 Fly guys 48 Compared with 50 “L’Absinthe” painter 51 Lagoon surrounder 53 “Return of the Jedi” moon 54 Afrobeat composer Kuti 55 “QuiÈn ___?” (“Who knows?”)

56 “Call Mr. ___, that’s my name, that name again is Mr. ___” (jingle from one of Homer Simpson’s business ventures) 57 Unspecified philosophies 58 It might cover the continent

News

59 Crowdfunding targets 60 Moore of both “The Scarlet Letter” and “Striptease” 61 Baldwin with a recent stint on “SNL” 62 “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” author Mitch 63 Page for pundit pieces 64 Prior 65 Huge amounts 66 Cubs Hall of Famer Sandberg

Up Front

Across 1 Like “der” words, in Ger. 5 “48 Hours Investigates” host Lesley 10 Bus route 14 Palindromic Italian digit 15 Jason who will play Aquaman in 2018 16 Ride-sharing app 17 “Va-va-___!”

18 Bring together 19 “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” spinoff 20 Character on a cel 23 “Unleaded” drink 24 Maker of Centipede 25 Takes much too seriously, for short?

26 “Carmen” highlight, e.g.

30 Some Italian models 33 Third-generation actress who co-starred in “Jackie Brown” 36 “The Secret ___ Success” 39 “Fences” star Davis 40 “Back in the ___” (Beatles tune) 41 Did some birthday prep work, maybe 44 Bicycle shorts material 45 Sacred promise 46 Trucker’s compartment 49 Civic’s make 52 Like theremin noises, usually 54 Toys that are making the rounds in 2017 news?

58 Waitstaff’s handout

Playing June 2 – 4

Answers from previous publication.

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--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

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Great Cartoons! Free Admission! 10 a.m. & 12 p.m. Every Saturday!

TV CLUB: American Gods

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21

May 31 – June 6, 2017

Forest Lawn Drive, Greensboro

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In remembrance.

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T

A hot dog endurance test

Up Front News Opinion

Kermit’s Hot Dog House is but one of Winston-Salem’s shrines to the wiener.

JELISA CASTRODALE

Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

praising the freshness of the toppings, and the crunch 27101, which serves ginormous quarter-pound dogs of the peppers. in buns with the restaurant’s diamond-shaped logo The next stop was PB’s Takeout, which is undefeated seared into the sides. When I carried my tray to the in its hotdoggery: it has been our unanimous favorsidewalk tables, that nacho cheese-drenched hot dog ite for three straight years. The dogs are simple — no felt like it weighed 50 pounds. After two bites, I was pretzel buns, no logos branded into the bread — but starting to regret a significant number of my life choicthose buns are perfect. They’re buttered and toasted es. It was my all-around least favorite of the day — I to the perfect crispness, and the entire combination of wasn’t a fan of the bun, dog or chili-cheese — and I’d cash-only payment, picnic table seating and an unfussy feel that way even if I hadn’t already eaten several feet hot dog is deeply satisfying. If I had to eat one hot dog worth of animal byproducts. When we all wiped our for the rest of my life, it would be PB’s. (“Then why mouths for the last time and calculated our votes for do you insist on stuffing your face with mechanically the favorite, we were split between Skippy’s and PB’s, separated pork parts, Jelisa?” you might be asking. BEwith one vote for Kermit’s.

CAUSE IT’S ABOUT THE JOURNEY, KELSEY! IT’S ABOUT As I write this several days later, I’ve almost forgotTHE JOURNEY!) ten how it felt to hit that Wall, and my hands are no We were halfway through, and still surprisingly longer the size of catcher’s mitts. I’m not saying I’m optimistic about life. The next stop was Kermit’s Hot ready for next year, but I will be… next year.

Dog House, which Our State magazine once named one Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who lives in of the 10 best hot dogs in North Carolina. “You here for Winston-Salem. She enjoys pizza, obscure power-pop hot dogs?” a customer asked us on our way in the door. records and will probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter We all nodded. “Well, you’re about to have some good @gordonshumway. food up in here,” he said, raising a heavy looking to-go bag. Kermit’s does make a good dog — I’m a big fan of the pimiento cheese — but the banana pudding is what keeps it in our rotation every year. We Take charge of your mind, body and spirit scraped the last spoonTest pH balance, allergies, hormones fuls of pudding out of the Balance diet, lifestyle and emotions Styrofoam cups, waved Create a personalized health and nutrition plan our sodium-swollen hands at the staff, then inched (336) 456-4743 • jillclarey3@gmail.com toward our last hot dogs of 3723 West Market St., Unit–B, Greensboro, NC 27403 the day. www.thenaturalpathwithjillclarey.com We finished at Local

Cover Story

here’s a special kind of despair that endurance athletes are all on a first-name basis with, a uniquely awful feeling that somehow convinces you that you are physically incapable of taking one more step. It’s called

by Jelisa Castrodale the Wall, and it once introduced itself to me at the 18-mile mark of my first marathon.

I came to a dead stop on an empty stretch of asphalt somewhere near San Diego, laced my fingers behind my head and proceeded to scream at a man dressed as Jesus that if he wanted me to keep going, then he could just throw me over his shrouded shoulder and walk me there. (This was not a hallucination: There was an amateur Jesus standing out there on the race course.)

Anyway, last Saturday afternoon, I met the Wall for the second time in my life while I was sitting on a Fourth Street sidewalk, trying to finish my fourth straight hot dog.

Four years ago, one of my friends read an article in a tourist magazine that celebrated all of the hot dog joints that were scattered in and around Winston-Salem. It had a map of more than a dozen restaurants, listing the high points of each one (and only the high points, because if you’ve ever read the ingredient list on a package of wieners, you know the low points). We decided that we would try to visit as many of them in one day as we could, because everyone does stupid things when they’re young. We visited six restaurants, downed six dogs and since no one lost a toe to gout, we did it again the next year.

We have kept this tradition going every Memorial Day weekend, and I think we’ve visited all of the spots on that original list, including Pulliam’s, Dairi-O, Char’s, Alan’s Dairy Treats, Hot Dog City and the Little Red Caboose. Last year, we also realized that six hot dogs is too many, so we’ve since limited ourselves to four restaurants in an afternoon. Regardless, my official cause of death should probably still be listed as Hot Dog. (Also, we also had matching “Weiner-Salem” T-shirts last year and I assumed we’d be wearing them again on Saturday, but nope, I was the only dummy who showed up with a screen-printed bottle of ketchup on her chest. Thanks for letting me know, guys!)

Anyway again, we started at Skippy’s this year, sliding into its unending line in the hour before it closed.

The downtown favorite reopened in March, and its signature pretzel buns are still on the menu — and they are still glorious. My dog was smothered beneath a thick layer of Velveeta and cheddar (purely because if I see the word Velveeta on a menu, that is always the option I’m gonna take) while everyone else went for the Chicago dogs.

“It’s not a poppy seed bun, so it’s not exactly the same as a real Chicago dog,” my Chicago-transplant friend Jason said. “The relish is a little different too, but it’s still a damn good hot dog.” Everyone else agreed,

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