TCB Dec. 7, 2017 — Taking the cake by Triad City Beat

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point December 7 - 13, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

FREE

TAKING THE CAKE

THE INTERSECTION OF FOOD & EQUALITY

PAGES 10 & 18

K-Vegas Nazi PAGE 6

Alabama fake PAGE 17

Avant-Gilmore PAGE 20

The 2017 Local Gift Guide on Page 11

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK December 7 - 13, 2017

New Orleans stories: My Saints jersey

PIZZERIA

L’ITALIANO

Large 1-topping pizza

4-cheese pizza

99 Good through 9/27/17 $ Monday – Thursday

WE ! DELIVER

Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net

every Tuesday, all day

I pulled my old New Orleans Saints jersey from the recesses of my closet a few weeks ago, when I sensed something big from by Brian Clarey them this season. They’ve rewarded me by winning two of the last three games, including a pretty convincing slam on the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, bringing them to first place in the NFC South. I’m not saying the jersey had anything to do with it, but it couldn’t have hurt. My Saints jersey is a punchline — and not just because it reps Heath Shuler, a Heisman Trophy also-ran who parlayed a great career at Tennessee into a firstround draft pick and disappointing three seasons at QB with the Washington Redskins. He took a disastrous turn with the New Orleans Saints, in 1997, marked by injury and sub-mediocrity. This was before he got himself elected to Congress in 2007, where he represented North Carolina’s 11th District until 2013. So yes, Heath Shuler, ha ha. But the jersey is also funny because of the manner in which I obtained it, way back in the first few weeks of Shuler’s only season with the Saints. The Saints were not a good football team in 1997, and no one but the die-hards — which did not include me — felt that Shuler could do a damn thing about it. We had finished at 3-13 the previous seasons, sadly just the second-worst season in team history, and anybody who knew anything knew that we were looking at another year in the NFL toilet.

219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • 336-274-4810

rattle + hum We repair all makes and models.

Automotive 894 N. Liberty Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101 2

336.293.7312 • #wsnc rattleandhumautomotive.com

Maybe that’s why everyone was so on edge that fall down in New Orleans: There were a lot more bar fights than usual at Igor’s, where I worked — what Big Tiny used to call the “boom-boom” — and this was right around the time that an unhappy customer tried to throw a golf ball at me. I had a wedding in town that particular weekend, a bunch of guys from high school and college, and I invited one of my bar regulars to tag along with us as I showed my old friends the city. That turned out to be a mistake. Now, 20 years later, the exact circumstances elude me, but I remember that just around midnight I was on the sidewalk of St. Charles Avenue preventing my barfly from initiating a street brawl with an old friend from high school. And in the process, the barfly gave me a pretty good poke in the eye. He understood immediately the severity of what he had done: Barflies do not punch bartenders in the city of New Orleans. It goes against the natural order of things. And it can get you 86-ed for life, complicated in this case because the barfly in question lived in an apartment above the bar. It was where he got his mail. So I booted the barfly for a week, a slap on the wrist, really. And at the start of my next shift, by way of apology, I found a brand-new Saints No. 5 jersey, which bore Heath Shuler’s moniker but had my name all over it. I still keep in touch with that barfly, who largely keeps his fists to himself these days. And I imagine he’d be surprised to learn that I still have the jersey, let alone remember how I got it.

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

ART ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette

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

SALES SALES EXECUTIVE Andrew Alzare

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

andrew@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

CONTRIBUTORS

brian@triad-city-beat.com

eric@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

robert@triad-city-beat.com

Gay weddings are now so commonplace that they have their own stock photography category.

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

Lauren Barber, Carolyn de Berry Spencer KM Brown, Matt Jones

triad-city-beat.com

Write for Triad City Beat Now accepting intern applications for January â&#x20AC;&#x201C; April 2018 Send a resume and cover letter to jordan@triad-city-beat.com by Dec. 15. College grads, women, trans folks and people of color strongly encouraged to apply.

December 7 - 13, 2017

CITY LIFE Dec. 7 – 10 by Lauren Barber

THURSDAY

Up Front

Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity @ Triad Stage (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY

Festive Family Friday @ Kaleideum North (W-S), 4:30 p.m. Choral and instrumental ensembles from the UNC School of the Arts, RJ Reynolds High School and Twin City Tuba perform while attendees meet live animals and make bags of reindeer food, ornaments and other festive crafts. Enjoy a puppet show, science demonstrations and a holiday laser show in the planetarium before photos with Santa. Find the event on Facebook.

Winter Jubilee @ Muddy Creek Café (W-S), 8 p.m.

News

Christmas Tours @ Reynolda House (W-S), 5p.m.

Opinion

String-band musicians Hasee Ciaccio, Sam Gleaves, Tyler Hughes and Emily Mann perform Music and Memories from the Mountain South, old-time country music featuring fiddle, banjo, dancing and storytelling. Find the event on Facebook.

SATURDAY

Culture

Ugly Sweater Fun Run @ Fleet Feet (GSO), 8 a.m.

Triad Stage presents a holiday play based in the Blue Ridge region where a reverend and his flock tell the Christmas story with humor. Greensboro musician Laurelyn Dossett contributes original music. Learn more at triadstage.org.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

John Cowan @ Van Dyke Performance Space (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

Costumed actors play a Reynolda butler, governess, schoolteacher and holiday partygoer while guiding visitors on special evening tours of the massive, candlelit home. Learn more at reynoldahouse.org.

ArtsGreensboro and the Blue Ridge Music Center present progressive bluegrass bass player and vocalist John Cowan, who dabbles in country, gospel, jazz and rock & roll. Traditional bluegrass husband-and-wife duo Brooke and Darin Aldridge join Cowan for a spirited concert. Learn more at thevandyke.org.

Ugly Holiday Sweater Party @ Boxcar Bar & Arcade (GSO), 8 p.m. Don your favorite ugly holiday sweater for photos with “Bad Santa” and enter for a chance to win prizes. Find festive, discounted mixed drinks and live music inside as well as food truck options outside. Find the event on Facebook.

Whip out your favorite ugly sweater again for an un-timed 5k run, followed by snacks and raffles. Snowtorius will provide a limited number of sweaters for participants. Strollers and children are welcome. Learn more at uglysweaterfunrun.weebly.com.

triad-city-beat.com

Christmas Festival @ Old Salem (W-S), 10 a.m.

Elf Tea Party @ Kaleideum Downtown (W-S), 10:30 a.m.

Jazz for Geeks @ Geeksboro Coffee & Beverage Company (GSO), 5 p.m. Up Front News

Snack on mini cupcakes, fruit and hot cocoa during a holiday tea-time before crafting “magical elf donuts” and reindeer food for Christmas Eve. Children will make elf costumes complete with rosy cheeks, a bell necklace and felt cap ears before a sing along and a quiet story time. Learn more at kaleideum.downtown.org. Holiday Black Market @ Urban Grinders (GSO), noon

Opinion Culture

Old Salem hosts a celebration of Moravian traditions, concluding with caroling and the lighting of the Christmas Pyramid in Salem Square at 5 p.m. Learn about historic Christmas decorations, see hearth cooking and trades demonstrations or go on a wagon ride. A traditional Lovefeast celebration — complete with buns and tea — occurs in St. Philips Church at 11 a.m. Learn more at oldsalem.org. An octet of Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra players performs jazz renditions of nerd classics like Star Trek, Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Brothers. Creative director Joe Scott curates accompanying video to the performance and promises surprises for guests throughout the night. Learn more at geeksboro.com.

The Nutcracker @ Carolina Theatre (GSO), 3 p.m.

SUNDAY

Gingerbread house class @ Tart Sweets (W-S), 12:30 p.m. Decorate your own scratch made and pre-assembled gingerbread house during this all ages class. Enjoy snacks while trimming your creation with festive treats. Find the event on Facebook.

Puzzles

Greensboro Ballet presents the opening performance of a beloved classic for the holiday season. Join the dancers as they embark on Clara’s enchanted adventure with giant mice, candies and dolls that come to life. Learn more at carolinatheatre.com.

Indivisible Guilford County NC Power Hour @ High Point Public Library (HP), 4 p.m. Grassroots democracy advocacy groups Indivisible High Point and Indivisible Greensboro recently merged, and the consolidated group will hold its first monthly “power hour” to strategize for the upcoming year. Find the event on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad

Gather in the first-floor common area to peruse goods from local businesses, artists, crafters and makers. Urban Grinders and Wow! What a Drink serve coffee, hot chocolate, mango apple cider and hot teas while Cut the Music Prints screenprints T-shirts and Winston Walker 3D prints live.

College population by Jordan Green

Up Front

December 7 - 13, 2017

The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship...

News

Serious About Your Business?

PROVE IT

Office Space starting at $180 per month

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

Businesses of any size or age... It is never too late to ask for help.

336-379-5001

www.nussbaumcfe.com

NO NEWS IS

BAD NEWS We need each other. Support FREE, INDEPENDENT PRESS by reading Triad City Beat. OR, support your business and the free press by advertising with us.

1. Greensboro Colleges and universities provide an unalloyed benefit to cities: Their research facilities drive innovation, most notably hospital systems that provide the backbone of employment for their communities. They provide relatively high-wage employment. Their cultural and arts programming enriches their host communities. Their students create demand for good and services. Of course, how well cities leverage the asset makes a big difference, but aggregate student population provides at least a crude measure of a city’s vitality. Among the Triad’s three cities, Greensboro holds a significant advantage when it comes to college population, with about 40,000 students. UNCG, with about 19,000 enrolled, leads. NC A&T University, the largest HBCU in the nation since 2014, contributes 11,150 students. GTCC’s east Greensboro campus throws 5,000 into the pot. Guilford College (1,776), Greensboro College (1,000) and Bennett College (400) fill out the balance. 2. Winston-Salem In contrast, Winston-Salem has a relatively small student population, with aggregate enrollment of about 27,500. Of those, Forsyth Tech claims 11,477. Among local institutions that provide four-year and graduate degrees, Wake Forest University holds the dominant position with 7,968 students. Winston-Salem State University, also an HBCU, has 5,107 students. UNC School of the Arts (1,305), Salem College (1,100), and the lesser-known Piedmont International University (740) account for the remainder. Winston-Salem’s university population is comparatively isolated, but its major institutions are shifting focus towards downtown to promote student engagement with the city. Wake Forest leases classroom space in the Innovation Quarter, which also hosts the Center for Design Innovation, a multidisciplinary collaboration between WSSU, UNC School of the Arts and Forsyth Tech. 3. High Point Nido Qubein had led High Point University through an explosive growth in enrollment since his appointment as president in 2005, from 1,450 to 4,500 students. HPU now accounts for the majority of the city’s college population — less than 8,000 total. GTCC’s High Point campus contributes 3,000. The current enrollment for the struggling evangelical institution John Wesley College is 150, according to the Winston-Salem Journal, and it is undergoing a merger with Piedmont International University, so its future footprint in High Point remains unclear. One of the city’s top priorities is increasing its millennial population — a goal likely to be aided by Qubein’s $50 million commitment to support an events center, children’s museum and free educational movie theater around the proposed downtown stadium.

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Next month, it’ll be two years since I sat with my back against a wall in my apartment, wringing tension-filled hands I’d wrapped around my tucked-in legs. I remember crushing my spine into that off-white plaster, knowing that if I unglued myself I’d march to the kitchen and hit the bottle. I needed to stay put ‘til the urge passed, until I internalized an abrupt decision to cold-turkey sobriety. I sat from late morning into evening and I’m glad I did. It’s an odd position to be a sober twentysomething, though, and I find myself staring into the eyes of strangers as they leave conversational space for an explanation I don’t owe. I tend to offer a half-truth and say I stopped for health reasons unless I feel comfortable opening up. What’s of interest to me lately, though, are the reactions I get when I share that I’ve been white-knuckling for two years. Eyebrows tend to raise. “Wow,” typically precedes, “I could never do that,” or — more recently, from the mouths of alcoholics and addicts: “Why have you been doing that to yourself? That’s not a good idea.” I found this annoying. It’s an Real growth is about what you’re ephemeral but rewarding high willing to do instead of drink. to hear reactions of awe and I’d always told myself it proves I’m kind of hardcore. A woman reading my tarot last Friday publicly yelled at me for self-flagellating, though, and I realized I’d been missing the point or at least failing to enact healthy, fulfilling changes in my day-to-day. Sobriety isn’t a simple matter of not drinking, a mere extension of coping through avoidance. Real growth is about what you’re willing to do instead of drink. If you find yourself frustrated and your social life disintegrating, I promise it eventually becomes rewarding to figure out how you will spend your time on this floating rock without alcohol. Eventually, the sting of lost relationships fades and you direct your energy into cultivating the ones that remain and the ones yet to come. To those who’ve continued reading — and for whom every sentence is a trigger or hint that change must come — I see you and my heart goes out to you, but I’m not here to shame you or to tell you that everything will be okay. I’m writing now because this is my second holiday season without booze and I know how much physical and psychological restraint it takes to resist temptation when an unknowing family member hands you a glass of red. If you pull back now, January will be a comparative breeze. Emotional eating will not land you in the emergency room. Whether you’re ready or not, please don’t punish yourself on the sly. The line between self-forgiveness and discipline is thin and hazy. Remember, too, that you don’t owe anyone your story when they ask you: Why? This is your liberation, on your terms. And you deserve to heal.

triad-city-beat.com

Sobriety by Lauren Barber

December 7 - 13, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

NEWS

Meet Harold Ray Crews, the Main Street white nationalist by Jordan Green Harold Ray Crews’ maintains a law practice that focuses on family law and real estate, projecting small-town propriety, but he’s active in a violent white supremacist group. The tidy, one-story brick office complex on North Main Street in downtown Kernersville might seem like an unlikely setting for a self-conceived revolutionary white supremacist. Crews, the North Carolina state chairman for the neo-Confederate group League of the South, came to national notoriety in October when he persuaded a magistrate in Charlottesville, Va. to take out an arrest warrant for felony unlawful wounding against DeAndre Harris, a young, black man who was brutally beaten by a mob of white supremacists in the entrance to the Market Street Parking Garage during the Aug. 12 Unite the Right rally. The beating was captured on video and widely reported. Despite its innocuous-sounding name, the League of the South is one of the most virulently racist far-right organizations in the United States, promoting a subset of fascist ideology known as Southern nationalism that seeks a white homeland in the states that make up the former Confederacy. As a part of the Nationalist Front coalition, the League has banded together with three neo-Nazi groups — the Traditionalist Worker Party, National Socialist Movement and Vanguard America — to hold rallies in Pikeville, Ky. in April, and then Shelbyville, Tenn. in October. The four groups also provided the shock troops for the violent Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville in August under the leadership of alt-right celebrity fascist Richard Spencer. As recounted in a 207-page independent review of the events in Charlottesville by the Hunton & Williams law firm, at around 10:45 a.m. on Aug. 12, “a massive column of hundreds of Unite the Right demonstrators” led by the League of the South and the Traditionalist Worker Party marched along the southern perimeter of Emancipation Park, towards a line of clergy. When other counter-protesters rushed to stand with the clergy, the report says,

Harold Ray Crews maintains a law office in downtown Kernersville and makes podcasts about his efforts to build a fascist movement in the US South.

“Unite the Right demonstrators pushed forward with their shields and hit the counter-protesters with flagpoles. Open source video footage shows demonstrators violently jabbing the poles at counter-protesters’ faces. The counterprotesters fought back and tried to grab the flagpoles away. Eventually, the [Unite the Right] demonstrators pushed the counter-protesters away with brute force and a cloud of pepper spray.” Later, after the police declared the rally an unlawful assembly, the report said the same group of League of the South and Traditionalist Worker Party members marched about three blocks eastward to the Market Street Parking Garage, while exchanging insults and projectiles with counter-demonstrators. Describing a fight that broke out in front of the parking garage, the report says, “From our review of the ample open source video footage of this confrontation, it appears that a counterprotester attempted to yank a flag away from a Unite the Right demonstrator

who resisted and fought back. During that struggle, a second counter-demonstrator named DeAndre Harris rushed in and used a club — possibly a Maglite flashlight — to strike the alt-right demonstrator’s head or shoulder.” The League of the South website identifies Crews as the person who was hit by the flashlight. Soon afterwards, Harris was knocked down in the entrance of the parking garage and beaten, “sustaining several fractures, cranial lacerations and internal body injuries,” according to his lawyer. Harris’ lawyer S. Lee Merritt has denied that his client was responsible for Crews’ injuries. Merritt released a statement in mid-October to the effect that “Harris and Crews had a brief encounter when Harris observed Crews appearing to spear an associate with the sharpened end of a Confederate flagpole. Mr. Harris swung the flashlight in the space between the flagpole and Mr. Crews, failing to make contact before the brief scuffle ended.”

COURTESY PHOTO

Harris is due in Charlottesville General District Court on Dec. 14 for a hearing on the unlawful wounding charge. Crews declined to comment for this story. “I don’t speak to the media under any circumstance,” he wrote in an email to Triad City Beat. “Do not contact me again.” Crews maintains an active Twitter presence. Some of the content in his feed reflects the cheeky ironic-but-notironic style of the alt-right, including a retweeted meme spoofing LGBTQ equality that declares, “I support samerace marriage.” Others express ominous condemnation of perceived enemies: “If you favor illegal immigration/amnesty then you’re a traitor and deserve everything that’s coming to you.” Crews describes himself in a YouTube video as a typical “Jesse Helms Republican” who was active in the Young Republicans during his undergrad years at Appalachian State University and then a member of the Federalist Society while

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Hard news at no cost to you, and no matter the cost to us.

triad-city-beat.com

tional Conference — posted to YouTube lusioned Trump voters,” Crews said, by Crews and provocatively titled “The “who’ve not received immigration war has already begun!” — he prepared reform, build-a-wall-deport-them-all, members for “a haven’t received fourth-generathe NAFTA retion war to the peal and trying ‘If it looks like we’re prevailing maximum” in to restructure —the hard right — then they’re which “you can the economy gonna fall in line. And so, when know the enemy to benefit the most normies out there — they’ll because the skin working man.” fall in line, too.’ he’s wearing Crews and — Harold Ray Crews becomes his other League uniform.” leaders are Hill scoffed playing coy that “heritage, not hate” apologists who about the organization’s next move, try to portray the Confederacy as a kind but Hill said in a recent podcast their of multicultural utopia are wasting their next event will be independent of their time trying to win over adversaries. Nationalist Front coalition partners. “These people know what the ConHe added that the League is “trying to federate flag stands for,” Hill said. “They present an image of an activist boots-inknow what those monuments in New the-street-boots-on-the-ground organizaOrleans stand for. They stand for you. tion.” And when they finish with the stone Crews told Hill during an episode of and the fabric, they’re coming after the the podcast in early November that he flesh.” was trying to reorganize his law practice Crews also maintains a semi-regular to free up more time to travel for League podcast, where Hill and other League events. figures are frequent guests. During a Befitting an activist ready to make a recent episode on Nov. 15, Crews and clean break from US political norms, Brad Griffin, identified on Twitter as Crews tweeted on Nov. 4: “A revoluthe League’s “public relations chief,” tionary political movement ought to be enthused about the recent Nov. 11 naformed as a DAO (decentralized autonotionalist rally in Warsaw, Poland, where mous organization). This allows maxiwhite supremacists carried signs declarmum security but still has an accepted ing, “Pray for an Islamic Holocaust” ‘chain’ of command.” He explained furand “Pure Poland, White Poland.” The ther: “Members can remain anonymous. conversation reveals a preoccupation There is not a set command control among league members with reaching which could be subverted or captured, out to white people with mainstream valwhich differs from cell orgs.” ues — “normies,” in alt-right parlance Crews’ law practice in downtown — and both Crews and Griffin express Kernersville shares space in the Hart confidence that holding firm to extremComplex with an architecture firm, ist rhetoric will gradually expand the a naturopathic health center and a window of acceptable discourse. boutique clothing store. On a recent “If it looks like we’re prevailing — the Saturday, holiday shoppers strolled the hard right — then they’re gonna fall in bustling strip for the “Christmas Around line,” Crews said. “And so, when most the World” festival, sponsored by the normies out there — they’ll fall in line, Kernersville Chamber of Commerce. A too. You see this repeatedly over history, short block north of Crews’ law office where you have a small minority who they poured into an airy wine bar that make history, and the eternal normie also specializes in cocktails and craft just falls in line and pretty much accepts beer, subdivided into stalls for a holiday everything that the radical [proposes].” market stocked with everything from vinIn another recent podcast, Crews tage Carhartt pants to local pottery. and Griffin groused that President The holiday shoppers browsing local Trump has failed to deliver much for made goods likely had no idea that a his populist-nationalist base other than lawyer with an office on the strip spends symbolic gestures like his Twitter war his free time making podcasts to promote against the NFL. the establishment of a white Christian “We’ve got to appeal to those disilethno-state in the US South.

TRUTH IS POWER

he studied law at Campbell University, where he became a practicing Catholic. A resident of Walkertown, he said he became disillusioned with conventional politics while volunteering sporadically with his “county GOP organization” from 2000 to about 2004. He said the tensions between the grassroots and “moneyed establishment,” and between the limited-government and social-conservative wings of the party eventually pushed him towards so-called Southern nationalism. State voter records indicate that Crews changed his registration to unaffiliated in 2012. Brian Miller, the chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party, said he’s been active with the county organization since 1980, and “has never met or heard of or had any conversation with” Crews. “The white nationalist movement is counter to all of the beliefs of the Forsyth County Republican Party and the Republican Party as a whole,” Miller said. “People in this world are free to interpret anything they want, including the Christian religion or nationalism. We do not support or agree with any of the white nationalist or segregationist agenda.” In contrast to the far-right activists who call themselves patriots and extol the Constitution, Crews expresses no love for the founding tenets of the US political system. “America is no more than a social construct from which I know in my heart of hearts I am excluded,” Crews says in his video. He says his extremist politics are based on identity, including ethnicity and religion, and like others in the League of the South he expresses disdain for so-called “propositions,” or political principles that transcend identity. Michael Hill, the League’s president, outlined the group’s ideology more bluntly in a talk at the organization’s 2013 National Conference that plainly recycled the Nazi slogan “blood and soil.” “We’re not wedded in the League or in the true South to a universal proposition,” Hill said. “Equality, democracy, the universal rights of man — all of these poisonous things that have been foisted upon us we’ve been conditioned to think are good. No, we are wedded to a real historical order, based on, as I said, blood and soil, kith and kin.” In Hill’s speech during the 2017 Na-

December 7 - 13, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Faith, civil rights coalition speaks out against anti-LGBTQ discrimination by Jordan Green On the eve of oral arguments before the US Supreme Court, a coalition of faith leaders, civil libertarians and business owners gathered at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro on Monday to make the case that private businesses don’t have the right to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case before the Supreme Court, hinges on whether Jack Phillips, a Christian Denver-area baker, holds the right to refuse to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple on the basis of religious freedom and the First Amendment. The half-dozen speakers at Scuppernong focused more on the former claim, arguing that denying services to LGBTQ people is not only a violation of civil rights but also flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian faith tradition. “As we know, this case isn’t about cake, but it also isn’t really about Jesus,” said Alex McNeill, the executive director of More Light Presbyterians, a national organization that promotes LGBTQ inclusion in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Behind him, dozens of supporters held signs reading, “My faith doesn’t discriminate.” “I’ve read the Bible and I can’t find a single place where Jesus turned someone away because of who they are,” said McNeill, who is in the process of becoming a Presbyterian minister. “In fact, Jesus’ ministry was about welcoming people, and meeting people where they are. Jesus taught us that we show our love for God by loving our neighbor, even when we disagree.” He added that “granting businesses the right to discriminate is not only inconsistent with our Constitution, it’s also opposite to Jesus’ example.” A transgender man, McNeill said he could easily imagine himself in the shoes of David Mullins and Charlie Craig, the same-sex couple in the Supreme Court case. After all, he was planning his own wedding in North Carolina in 2012, the year the Colorado couple was turned down by Masterpiece Cakeshop. “Every time I walk through the doors of a business, I worry that my fiancé and I will be turned away or treated badly because of who we are,” McNeill said.

“We were so excited to plan our wedding and begin our lives together as a new couple, but I braced myself when walking into a new business. Would I be told by a store employee or owner that they didn’t ‘serve my kind’ here?” The Rev. Anthony Spearman, president of the North Carolina NAACP and pastor at St. Phillips AME Zion Church in Greensboro, said religious freedom claims have a long and ignoble history of being used as a ploy for justifying discrimination. Dating back to his role as an NAACP leader in Hickory, Spearman JORDAN GREEN has worked to “bridge Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light Presbyterians, speaks out against anti-gay discrimination at Scuppernong Books on Monday. the gap between gay rights and black integration inside the restaurant,” Spearthat. More importantly, however, the rights,” as he put it. man said. “The Supreme Court found Bible sees cheating in business and de“Those who cannot accept the reality [unanimously] that the Piggie Park barception and lying as abominations. And that all humans are created in the image becue was going to have to get with the which of these is most important? As a of God tried the same arguments in the program of the new South — black and religious leader, I know my answer.” 1970s to assert that women should be white children sitting down together in Margarita Delgado, the owner of paid unequally because their proper role schools, restaurants, maybe just maybe Manny’s Universal Café, ended the aswas in the home,” Spearman said. He in churches.” sembly by declaring that her Christian added that the same arguments were Andy Koren, the associate rabbi at faith compels her to welcome people of used in the 1950s “to assert that Negroes Temple Emanuel and a co-chair of the all backgrounds. should be segregated because they were Greensboro “I believe when members of an inferior race” and in the Faith Leaders I open the door ‘Every time I walk through the 1930s “to assert that Jews and Gypsies Council, said as an owner, doors of a business, I worry that and intellectuals should be sent to the scripture from I should have gas chambers.” my fiancé and I will be turned the first book of the doors open Spearman also cited the Newman v. away or treated badly because of the Bible and for everybody,” Piggie Park case, in which the Supreme Torah declaring she said. “As an who we are.’ — Alex McNeill Court unanimously ruled in 1968 that that “all humanowner, I cannot Maurice Bessinger, a member of the Naity is created in be selective…. I tional Association for the Preservation of the divine image of God” provides a believe in Jesus Christ, and I do believe White People, did not have the right to theological grounding for inclusion. He the love of Jesus should be the center of exclude blacks from eating in his South acknowledged that many conservative everything. And when we start practicing Carolina barbecue restaurant. religious leaders point out that “the Bible this, we’ll all be the same. There’ll be no “In a pretextual argument based on calls homosexuality an abomination. discrimination, there’ll be no color or years of Southern sophistry and men“Let’s also not forget that the Bible race. And we all at sometimes have been dacity, the barbecue owners said they refers to eating shrimp as an abominadiscriminated [against].” had always allowed black customers to tion,” Koren added. “The same is true buy take-out food, but they believed it for lobsters. You don’t see anything with was against their religion to promote

Local

Gift Guide 2017

Curated By: Local Gift Guide 2017

Keeping it local In some ways, all business is local.

Most of us make and spend our money within a few miles of our homes. Most of us work for small businesses. And many of us own our own businesses, capturing what pieces we can of the revenue stream as it flows through our cities. But what we mean by “local” in our annual gift guide is something specific: businesses that are uniquely ours, offering distinct products, signature touches or anything else that declares them to be of this place. And the point of the whole thing is to convince everyone to buy local this season. You know why. Every dollar spent at a local business is an investment in your community, a patriotic nod to the industriousness of your city, an exclamation of pride of place. Local business owners are your neighbors, your friends, the people you see at the grocery store or at your kids’ schools. One even wrote these words. And when it comes to craftsmanship, curation, service, design and taste, Triad business owners do it better than anyone else. On average, American consumers plan on spending $935.58 — the National Retail Federation has got this thing down to a science — between now and New Year’s Day. And it’s realistic to assume that much of this spending will not go to local businesses, because at some point you’ve just got to go to Target. But everybody can spend something locally. And we think there’s enough in these pages to find gifts for everyone on your list. Happy holidays, everyone. And thanks for keeping it local.

Local Gift Guide 2017

Fainting Goat Spirits

115 W. Lewis St. GSO, faintinggoatspirits.com Named one of the best gins in the world at this year’s San Francisco and New York International Spirits competition, Emulsion New American gift this holiday season. Emulsion’s unique blend of botanicals pairs notes of cardamom, lemongrass and lavender with the spice of cloves and create this one-of-a-kind gin. Emulsion is the first gin made by Fainting Goat Spirits located in downtown Greensboro. Named the 2017 North the Year, Fainting Goat Spirits is Greensboro’s only Grain to Glass distillery. They also proudly make the international award-wining Tiny Cat released aged whiskeys. You can purchase Emulsion New American Gin at your local ABC store or, you can purchase up to five bottles a yea directly from the distillery at 115 W Lewis St. in downtown Greensboro. If you want to learn how they make the award-winning spirits as well a a tour and tasting every Friday from 3-7 p.m., Saturday from 1-6 p.m., and Sunday from 1-5 p.m.

n Gin is the perfect d grains of paradise to Carolina Distillery of Vodka and soon to be ar of any of their spirits as taste them, you can do

Local Honey Artisan Hair Salon & Apothecary

233 Commerce Place GSO, localhoneysalon.com Beyond award-wining boutique hairdressing, consider Local Honey Salon when searching for the perfect gift. The store offers an immense collection of men’s grooming items from beard oils, and balms to mustache combs and waxes. True to their name you’ll not want to miss out on all the locally sourced honey they carry. Make your gift complete with CDs and vinyl from local bands, T-shirts and signed books on fashion from a top designer with roots in the area.

Sawtooth School for Visual Art 251 Spruce St. North WS, sawtooth.org

Deck the Halls is Sawtooth’s largest fundraising event and generates proceeds that help support the organization’s operations and arts-based programming. Beautifully displayed in their gallery and gift shop setting, Deck the Halls features a unique variety of work from more than 80 local and regional artists and craftsmen. Shoppers will find uniquely handcrafted gifts and home accent pieces among the array of pottery, jewelry, paintings, ornaments, photography, furniture, scarves, glass, quilts, soaps, cards and more. Prices start at just a few dollars for smaller items like holiday ornaments and cards and range to several hundred dollars for furniture and other larger items. Gift certificates are also available in any denomination, and can be used during Deck the Halls or year-round in Sawtooth’s gift shop. Dec. 1–20 HOURS OF OPERATION: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

Local Gift Guide 2017

Art and Soul

2140 Lawndale Drive, GSO, 336.763.0438, artandsoulnc.com Art and Soul is a women’s boutique on Lawndale Drive’s retail row, a curated mix of clothing, jewelry, gifts and spa-quality apothecary products that, by design, can’t be found anywhere else. Owner Jenny Stickrath buys craft goods in small quantities from local and regional artisans, and can explain the provenance of everything in her store. She and her staff take pride in customer service, and can provide styling advice or help hunt down the perfect gift.

Local Honey Artisan Hair Salon & Apothecary

Local Gift Guide 2017

Oscar Oglethorpe 226 S. Elm St. GSO, oscaroglethorpe.com The friends who started Oscar Oglethorpe in downtown Greensboro began with a simple premise: Prescription eyewear should look great, hold up well and be affordable. Together they created a new way of buying high-fashion, high-quality eyewear that offers a boutique look at a big-box cost. New glasses start at $150 — every pair, every day — and the in-house stylists are expert at choosing the right frames. Hundreds of unique styles to make sure your loved ones look great and see better this holiday season. Get $25 for yourself if you buy a gift certificate for $150 or more for someone else! Valid until Dec. 24.

Holiday Calendar Markets, festivals, parties! Find it all here DECEMBER

Friday, Dec. 1 Deck the Halls, Sawtooth School for Visual Art, WS, 10 a.m. (RUNS ALL MONTH) Vendor Market at Festival of Lights, LeBauer Park, GSO, 5 p.m. Holiday Jingle Market, Vintage to Vogue Boutique, GSO, 6 p.m. Festival of Lights, downtown Greensboro, GSO, 5 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 2 Cobblestone Pop-Up, Cobblestone Farmer’s Market, WS, 9 a.m. Community Craft Sale, Deep Roots Market, GSO, 10 a.m. Uptowne High Point Holiday Stroll, HP, 10 a.m. Market at the Moose, Greensboro Moose Lodge, GSO, 10 a.m. St. Francis Episcopal Holiday Market, St. Francis Episcopal Church, GSO, 10 a.m. Merry Merry @ Brookberry, Brookberry Farm, WS, 10 a.m.

GREENSBORO FARMERS CURB MARKET

501 Yanceyville St., GSO, gsofarmersmarket.org Besides a roomful of bounty from area farmers and small-batch food makers, the GCFM teems with local gift ideas: handmade soaps, candles and apothecary; locally made jewelry and art; fine pottery from area artisans and more. The market is open on Wednesdays through Dec. 28, from 8 a.m.-1 p.m., and on Saturdays all year round from 7 a.m.-noon.

Sunday, Dec. 3 Hops and Shop Winter Market, Foothills Tasting Room, WS, noon Hand to Hand Holiday Market, Elm Street Center, GSO, noon Made 4 the Holidays, Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, GSO, 11 a.m.

Saturday, Dec. 9 Cobblestone Pop-Up, Cobblestone Farmer’s Market, WS, 9 a.m. Holiday Black Market, Urban Grinders. GSO, noon

Thursday, Dec. 14 High Point University Community Christmas Celebration, Oak Hollow Mall, HP, 5:30 p,m,

Saturday, Dec. 16 Magic Holiday Market, Magic Feet Dance Co., HP, 10 a.m. Pop-Up Holiday Market, Geeksboro, GSO, 10 a.m. Krankies Craft Fair, Krankies, WS, noon

Wednesday, Dec. 20 Pre-Christmas Eve Market, Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, GSO, 8 a.m.

Saturday, Dec. 23 Christmas Eve Market, Greensboro Farmer’s Curb Market, GSO, 7 a.m.

Have we missed your event? Email details to brian@triad-city-beat.com for free inclusion in this calendar.

Local Gift Guide 2017

Shop Local this

Holiday Season

EDITORIAL

The lessons of Alabama

Thomas Farr and the ghosts of respectable racism

Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Farr is more than just a lawyer tasked with representing unsavory clients from time to time. Farr got his professional start at the law firm of Thomas Ellis, who managed Jesse Helms’ 1972 US Senate campaign and launched the National Congressional Club as a fundraising vehicle for Helm and other conservatives. Farr would go on to provide his legal services to the Helms’ reelection campaigns in 1984 and 1990. Notably, Helms’ political career from 1972 to 2002 coincided with the low ebb of political white supremacy, but he never renounced segregation. Prior to his Senate Judiciary hearing, Farr said in response to a written question by Sen. Diane Feinstein that he had not been aware of a 1990 campaign to send more than 100,000 postcards to black voters falsely suggesting that they were ineligible to vote and could be prosecuted for voter fraud if they did so. Gerald Hebert, formerly a federal investigator, told Indy Week last month that — contrary to his statement to Feinstein — Farr confirmed in 1990 that he was aware of the voter suppression campaign well before the US Justice Department brought it up. Farr did not respond to questions for this story. Farr entered the legal profession after Jim Crow segregation had been discredited, but he’s part of a political lineage that comes out of a much darker period. As the Southern Poverty Law Center reveals in an impressive report published on Monday, Thomas Ellis — Farr’s “longtime boss and mentor” — served as a director for the Pioneer Fund, an outfit founded in 1937 to pursue “race betterment” for those “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.” The fund was established by Wickliffe Draper, a reclusive textile heir, according to author William H. Tucker, who wrote that “the fund was established to use science to pursue the goals of its founder: the preservation of white supremacy and white racial purity from the threat posed by blacks and undesirable immigrants, especially Jews.” Draper’s money shaped important institutions that are familiar to Triad residents today. The Winston-Salem Journal revealed in a 2002 story that Draper, who was interested in eugenics, made a $100,000 donation — roughly equivalent to $650,000 today — to the Bowman Gray School of Medicine for its department of medical genetics in 1953. “To me, the whole concept of involuntary sterilization sends a chill down my spine,” Dr. William Applegate, then the dean of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told the Journal in 2002. “I just think it’s morally wrong. The very concept of that is profoundly upsetting to me and to the leadership and the faculty of the school.” One hopes that if the revelation about the school of medicine’s racist benefactor came out today, it would prompt the same level of moral indignation. We have to ask ourselves a serious question: Have we been re-conditioned to accept white supremacy in 2017?

News

From the early 20th Century through the mid-1950s, white supremacy and Jim Crow segregation was the ruling order by custom and law in the South. To be sure, it was despised by blacks, Jews and some liberal whites, but mostly by Jordan Green endured. It was always resisted, but until the advent of the mass movement in the mid-1950s the opposition consisted of marginal actors chipping away at the edges — civil rights lawyers, communists, progressive clergy, labor unionists. Then, around 1965, the determined civil rights activists who shed blood while facing police dogs and water hoses flipped the narrative, abetted by mainline Protestant and reform Jewish clergy and the mainstream media. From there on, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans alike would disavow segregation. Conservative resistance to black freedom would find new expression in appeals to law and order. The time when black people were denied full citizenship under the rule of segregation in the South wasn’t so long ago. Some of our parents and grandparents remember it. Whether our children grow up acclimatized to a resurgent order of ironclad white Christian nationalist oppression remains up in the air. It depends on whether people who believe in equality have the courage to resist the normalization and acceptance of bigotry. White supremacy is so woven into American history and major institutions like education, the courts and mass media that it can be hard to find language to effectively call out the equivalent to the Jim Crow segregation that systematically excluded blacks or anyone who didn’t meet the test of “white purity,” for that matter. That brand of racism is back on our doorstep with the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of Thomas Farr to a lifelong position as a federal judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina. I sat behind Farr in a federal courtroom in WinstonSalem in 2015 when he represented Gov. Pat McCrory to defend North Carolina’s draconian voter suppression law. He proved to be unfailingly courteous, and wore a pained expression as plaintiffs’ experts argued that the law was designed to disproportionately burden black voters. On the first day of the trial, he took umbrage at references by the plaintiffs’ lead counsel to the bloody 1965 civil rights battle in Selma, Ala., saying, “Nobody in this courtroom looks back at what happened in Selma without feeling disgust.” During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, Farr responded serenely to Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s question about the Fourth Circuit’s finding that the North Carolina election law “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.” “At the time our clients enacted those law, I do not believe that they thought they were purposely discriminating against African Americans,” Farr said.

Up Front

The special Senate election in Alabama scheduled for Dec. 12 pits accused child molester Roy Moore against Doug Jones, the guy who, in 2001, prosecuted the Klansmen found guilty of the 1963 firebombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four young, black girls. Though many in the country have expressed outrage over Moore’s continuing candidacy, especially after he was outed as a 1980s mall creeper, in Alabama he remains stubbornly ahead in the polls — which, as we’ve learned since the last election, mean nothing. But forget about handicapping the election for a moment, because no matter who wins this one, it’s already become a startlingly revealing moment in our nation’s history. To date, nine women have accused Moore of acts ranging from general scuzziness to outright sexual assaults and pedophilia that occurred when they were between 14 and 17 years of age. A chorus of voices in his own party called for his withdrawal — but that was last week, before Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared that Moore’s Republican-ness would be the only things he would consider when casting her vote for him, and encouraging other Alabamians to do the same. And it was before President Trump offered his own endorsement of Moore via Twitter, which read in part: “We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, VA, Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!” On the other side of the aisle, accusaThe consequences tions have been leveled at sitting conof this election gressmen Rep. John Conyers, who resigned drift far beyond on Tuesday, and Sen. the borders of Al Franken, who imAlabama. mediately called for an investigation into… himself. And now, Republicans in Washington DC have gone quiet on the Moore front, perhaps detecting a shift in the political wind or maybe just hoping the thing will spin out of the news cycle before the election goes down on Tuesday. The consequences of this election drift far beyond the borders of Alabama. A Senate majority hangs in the balance here, as the president pointed out. More so, no matter who wins we will learn something about this country, its voters and their attitudes towards women. In so many ways, we already have.

CITIZEN GREEN

triad-city-beat.com

OPINION

December 7 - 13, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

CULTURE Restaurateur with Triad roots boycotted by CLT official by Eric Ginsburg

aWana Mayfield doesn’t consider it a boycott. Instead, the Charlotte City Council member describes her decision not to patronize a planned restaurant in her district as a personal decision not to spend her money against her own selfinterest. Mayfield tweeted over Thanksgiving that, despite some people’s enthusiasm for the planned barbecue restaurant Noble Smoke in her District 3, she would stay away. “As the district representative I am happy for growth,” she said, but “as an out queer person of color I will never patronize this business as Noble is one of the signers against the fully inclusive non-discrimination ordinance.” Let’s back up a minute. Mayfield is describing Jim Noble, a High Point native who began his restaurant empire in the early 1990s in Winston-Salem, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. He still owns the restaurant, Rooster’s: A Noble Grille, near the intersection of Business 40 and Stratford Road along the north side of the Ardmore neighborhood. But he’s since expanded to several Charlotte locations, becoming what the Charlotte Observer called a “local Charlotte food legend” last month. Noble signed a 2015 letter to the Charlotte City Council opposing a planned nondiscrimination ordinance, one that — once passed — triggered reactionary state lawmakers to pass the muchmaligned HB 2. As Q Notes, a Charlotte-based LGBTQ publication, put it: “The letter — a pretty

much word-forword copy of a legal memo drafted by the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom — repeated homophobic and transphobic scare tactics, falsely linking transgender people and others in the LGB community to sexual predation.” That was almost three years ago, sure. So why now? Mayfield said in a phone interview that while she COURTESY PHOTOS privately refused to Jim Noble (left) signed a letter opposing a nondiscrimination ordinance in Charlotte, prompting councilmember LaWana Mayfield to avoid his restaurant, spend her money at any of Noble’s group. He also signed it as the pastor of Restoring Place businesses, she made her first public statement on the matter Church, a Christian church that meets in one of his restauafter a constituent excitedly shared a social media post with rants, King’s Kitchen, in Charlotte. And while he could’ve her about Noble Smoke. signed as a private citizen or just “I’m not going to tell anyone else how a pastor, his intentional mention they should spend their funds, but I believe of the restaurant group — which ‘Is it really a special night out, that if you don’t support me, I’m not going includes the Winston-Salem resor have I just subsidized hateful to spend my money with you,” Mayfield taurant — should put to rest any told Triad City Beat. She added that it’s legislation? Do you think we’ll debate about whether the dining important to know where you’re spending establishments should be roped do better if we know better?’ your money, and said that while she isn’t into it. -LaWana Mayfield calling for a boycott of Noble’s restaurants, But Noble isn’t shy about she hopes people take the time to do their mixing food with religion, which own research and make their own deciquickly bleeds into politics. sions. “In 1998, Jim and [his wife] Karen started Restoration World “Is it dining out, or is it paying for hate?” she asked. “Is it Ministries and their weekly radio broadcast ministry, the Voice really a special night out, or have I just subsidized hateful legof Healing Faith,” the website for King’s Kitchen explains. “An islation? Do you think we’ll do better if we know better?” ordained minister, Jim uses this outreach as a way to share the It’s impossible teachings of Christ as well as remain open to the ways God to separate politics calls him to serve. Over time, Jim recognized the relationship from food (or really of his two passions — serving food and serving God — and was anything), but just in led to the ministry of feeding the poor.” case you’re the kind There’s plenty to praise about the nonprofit King’s Kitchen of person inclined to in particular. It’s designed to train “men and women most accuse Mayfield (or consider to be unemployable,” and profits go towards feeding me) of injecting polithe poor, in addition to the job training and life-skills training tics where it doesn’t offered through the organization. It’s deeply intertwined with belong, it’s worth the Nobles’ church, enough so that the phone number listed remembering where on Restoring Place Church’s website is actually the main line this began. for King’s Kitchen, Noble — who But in a 2013 profile of Noble and King’s Kitchen, writer Jeff could not be Chu describes a sign at the joint restaurant/worship space reached for comthat equates homosexuality with addiction, criminality and ment — signed the witchcraft. From the piece, available on the Christian-focused letter opposing the Amy Foundation’s website: anti-discrimination “‘Wanted for the Kingdom of God,’ it shouts. ‘Drug addicts, ordinance by indicatalcoholics, prostitutes, pimps, all sick people, gangbangers, ing his relationship gamblers, strippers, AIDS victims, homosexuals, blind, with his restaurant confused, shoplifters, depressed, suicidal people, demon-pos-

Playing Dec. 8-13

TV CLUB presents The Walking Dead

triad-city-beat.com

ALL NEW EPISODE! 9 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10 FREE ADMISSION WITH DRINK PURCHASE!

Up Front

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

336-355-7180

Opinion

Board Game Night FEATURING ALL NEW GAMES! 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8th More than 100 BOARD GAMES -- FREE TO PLAY! PTJO Presents: Jazz For Geeks Featuring Inspired, Jazz Renditions of songs from Anime, Video Games, Sci-Fi, and more! 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9th Totally Rad Trivia! $3 buy in! Winners get CASH! 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12th Drink n’ Draw Join a community of artists! 6-11 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 13th Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee! 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •

News

sessed, and those who are unsaved and cursed by witchcraft.’” The Chu piece goes on to explain that: “You don’t have to be a Christian to be in the restaurant’s training program (though you do have to go to daily Bible study) or to be on staff (though he says ‘those who don’t have a heart for this usually don’t last’).” The church’s website includes a statement that they welcome everyone “regardless of background, gender and race,” though it’s unclear that they include transgender in that definition, and sexual orientation is noticeably absent. Mayfield, the city councilmember, acknowledged that Noble does “good things.” But that doesn’t mean she wants her money to end up supporting discriminatory legislation. She similarly won’t patronize the Billy Graham Library located in her district. While it’s been years since Noble signed that letter and most of this story takes place in Charlotte, it reverberates here because this is where Noble got his start, and where he maintains a flagship restaurant. The question, as Mayfield put it, is if we know better, will we do better?

YOU NEED

YOU

8:30 PM Friday, Dec. 8th Tickets $10

OTHER SHOWS Thursday Night: Open Mic 8:30 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 7th $5 Tickets! Friday Night Open Mic 10:00 p.m. Fri., Dec. 8th $10 Tickets! Family Friendly Improv 4 p.m. Sat., Dec. 9th $6 Tickets! Saturday Night Improv 8:30 p.m. Sat., Dec. 9th $10 tickets!

Puzzles

Support Free Press. Read us, follow us, advertise with us.

The Idiot Box Presents

Friday Night Stand Up!

Shot in the Triad

WE NEED

Culture

Playing Decmber 7-9

Discount tickets available @ Ibcomedy.yapsody.com

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

December 7 - 13, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

CULTURE James Gilmore, like you’ll never hear him again by Spencer KM Brown

ou’ve never heard this music before. Or at least not this exactly. I’m sure you can summon numerous examples and artists who play similar styles and use the same techniques, but the music James Gilmore is making has never been heard before — not even by the guitarist himself. The Greensboro-based jazz guitarist has made a name for himself as being one of the most prominent free-jazz musicians in the Triad. Having performed alongside dozens of top musicians and constantly playing shows, Gilmore seems to make it a point to keep the spaces around him occupied by new musicians. With an ever-changing, collaborating lineup, Gilmore’s music achieves a level of sound that is as transitory and ebbing as a river. Accompanying Gilmore at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro on Nov. 29 were bassist Vattel Cherry and world-renowned Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani; Cherry having performed with Gilmore on numerous occasions, though this was the first time they played with

Nakatani. But the trio were natural collaborators, whose styles came to blend perfectly. Out of nowhere, the sounds began with fine strings of Nakatani’s long, handmade bow pulling across brass hand bells. The high tones of the bells sounded like a human voice, singing out into the far corners of the room, drifting off among the wooden bookshelves that lined the walls on all sides of the stage. As Nakatani started the show, moving from hand bells to gong, pulling various sized bows across the metal, Gilmore stood with his eyes closed, listening patiently, as if waiting for the music to invite him into the song. Just beneath the high, brass bellows of the bells came Vattel Cherry’s rhythm pulsing in the background. With Cameroonian leg rattles tied around each ankle, Cherry moved his feet in syncopated timing to the highs and lows of the bells. His fingers scrapped along the bass strings, hands slapped the honey-colored wood, and the room suddenly burst to life as Gilmore jumped into a melody and joined in. While jazz was the backbone to the music SPENCER KM BROWN James Gilmore’s fusion outfit crafted a bespoke set at these men were making, the performance Scuppernong Books. contained an ever-present avant-garde element, allowing for any of the musicians to break free in pure self-gratification and were too much in love with the from whatever tune they were in, and carry the music into sounds they were making — a hazard for any musician. The entirely different realms. Everything that was music reached moments of pure chaos and dissonance at played relied on improvisation. The music held times, giving aid to the notion that perhaps the musicians tones and moments that built and rose louder and don’t care about those listening in the room, but would rather louder like rising water, leading you to feel panic carry on. It’s a hard line for any musician to cross. Though for amid the music; however, many, the point of avant-garde music other moments were soft, is to free musicians from the burnearly inaudible as the den of worrying about whether the For tour dates, music and more musicians found perfect audience is enjoying it. The question, visit jimmygilmoremusic.com. synchronicity in their though, becomes whether or not to dynamics. care about your audience, of when This style of free jazz the musicians become too engrossed and unorthodox, experiin themselves and at what point must mental music has had plenty of advocates in the they give homage to those gathered to listen. last half-century. Artists like John Zorn, Masada Experimental jazz lends itself to more difficult listening, and Naked City have all explored the realms of perhaps more so than most genres. But even then, there was improv and pushed jazz to the furthest fringes to a world of sound being examined throughout the show, which see what might happen. is enticing. The musicians found new ways to make music and The beauty of the approach is that during each tones that are full of twists and surprises and that’s someperformance, something completely and utterly thing many artists aim to accomplish but fail to achieve. new is created. The instruments become conduits Towards the end of the night, Nakatani and Cherry each to the musicians as they listen, feeling the mopulled their stringed bows across their instruments, Gilmore’s ments, as if each instrument, each performer is guitar reverberated and let out a wail of controlled feedback in conversation with the others, speaking now, as he thumped his fist on the headstock, and the music drifted then listening, next laughing together. The music off into the far corners of the room. Everyone sat perfectly still created is pure, condensed, raw sounds that, as the music dissipated, as if drifting off to some other place, somehow, find a harmony that draws immediate some other instrument. Everything was suddenly silent. And emotion from any listener. just like that, plucked out from nowhere at all the music had Appreciating Gilmore’s music definitely requires begun, and vanished like a cloud of smoke. a certain disposition and openness, especially for You’ve never heard this music before. No one will ever hear those who are unfamiliar with the style. At times, it again. it felt as if the musicians were suddenly engrossed

triad-city-beat.com

CULTURE Art you can dance on at Greensboro Project Space by Lauren Barber

Up Front News Opinion

Geographical and architectural elements make their way into Chelsea Tinklenberg’s Catologo Attivo.

LAUREN BARBER

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

said. “There’s such a rich history of textile manufacturing rope tied three or four times around one of the posts here and these amazing old mills. Where I come from [in that — rather than attaching to a boat — climbs upward northern Arizona], we have wood and a Purina factory.” through two steel hooks high on the wall above the dock Since moving to Greensboro, Tinklenberg’s craft has as a way to reference the variety of hooking connection points Tinklenberg spotted along the canals of Venice. evolved. “Before, I was very much like, ‘I’m a maker, I’m a A lone, cast-aluminum cabbage dangles from the end of craftsperson and I’m going to make the rope. The hardy vegetable everything by hand,’ which is a tradoesn’t quite belong, but Tinditional, romantic notion of what klenberg knows that. She just Learn more about Chelsea Tinklenlikes cabbages and typically an artist is,” Tinklenberg said. berg at chelseatinklenberg.com and Now, she sees her role a little has several rolling around her the Greensboro Project Space at home and studio space these differently. Tinklenberg plans to incorporate discarded factory days. greensboroprojectspace.com. production-line rollers in upcom“For a long period of history, ing work. What potentially disagsculpture had a monolithic gregated pieces of the Cone Denim factory, for instance, form,” Tinklenberg said. The cabbage is just the cabbage — it doesn’t symbolize might local MFA students integrate into their artwork five, 10 or 50 years from now? What will they tell us anything for me, but it’s important to me to incorporate an unexpected, absurd quality to my work for a contemabout ourselves? That ridiculous cabbage might serve as a little clue: porary audience.” That it’s absurd for any of us to assume that stability is This time around, her process reflected that element of final or that achieving balance is anything rather than impulse. Tinklenberg found more than half of her materian ongoing process. We may as well enjoy our waltz on als traipsing through Greensboro’s junkyards. “Greensboro has way more material resources like steel uncertain ground. compared to anyplace I’ve been before,” Tinklenberg

Culture

rt connoisseurs tend not to expect invitations to waltz atop sculpture installations, but that’s precisely what graduate student and artist Chelsea Tinklenberg enticed several gallery goers to do in the Greensboro Project Space on Dec. 1. Tinklenberg, 27, is one of eight second-year MFA students at UNCG who traveled to Venice in July. She and her peers drew inspiration from their observations abroad for works that are showcased in their collective exhibit, Catologo Attivo. The Greensboro Project Space is the university’s new contemporary art center, tucked away behind the intersection of Eugene Street and Gate City Boulevard and just around the bend from Gibb’s Hundred Brewing. Almost all travel in Venice required a ritual ebb and flow of unfastening and refastening the ropes to secure boats to docks. The surreal waterways that serve as Venice’s de facto streets enamored Tinklenberg. Her life-size rendering of a boating dock juts out 10 feet into the center of the relatively small space, and provides the opposite of stability to those who approach; now it’s the ground that offers constancy and the dock that breeds uncertainty. Eight faded, rhubarb-red poles stand erect in yellow rubber supports, offering a humble framework for the dried-up, ramshackle wooden planks Tinklenberg laid out like a small stretch of a roller coaster. From the side, it’s a playful piece but depending on how quickly and from what angle someone approaches, the whimsy could give way to a desperate search for sea legs. “I’m playing with this idea of changing perception and engaging with space,” Tinklenberg said, “specifically a type of absurd or unexpected movement that breaks us from our everyday routine.” In previous work, Tinklenberg experimented with simple and motorized mechanisms like cranks and gears to explore kinetics, but with this piece she urges viewers to physically engage her work and create their own experience with its implied movement. Their eyes follow an unassuming

December 7 - 13, 2017

S. Elm Street, Greensboro

Past, present, future.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

(336) 723-7239

breakfastofcourse.com

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

by Matt Jones

49 50 53 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Fin. neighbor Scale on a review site that determines if movies are “Certified Fresh” Amateur broadcaster’s equipment, once Treat table salt, in a way Sherlock Hemlock’s catchphrase on “Sesame Street” Shady tree Grade that’s passing, but not by much 1040 IDs Go slaloming Collect together

Up Front

SODUKO

Answers from previous publication.

41 42 43 45 46 47 48 51 52 54

Part of the eye with rods and cones Ramona’s sister, in Beverly Cleary books Put emphasis on Flight info, briefly Computer network terminals “The Book of Henry” actress Watts Make shadowy Cereal partner Home of Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” for short Some city map lines, for short

Opinion

Down 1 Be able to buy 2 “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper 3 Monstrous, like Shrek 4 None of the ___ ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 5 Subdue, with “down” 6 “___ City” (Comedy Central series) 26 Tied, in a way 7 ‘Til Tuesday bassist/singer Aimee 28 Baby kangaroo 8 Question of choice 30 “Same Kind of Different As Me” actress Zellweger 9 Network merged into the CW in 2006 31 I strain? 10 Sneaky way into a building 32 “End of discussion” 11 Racecar mishaps 33 Touchtone keypad button 12 Feels contrite 34 Gossip sessions, slangily 14 Monitor-topping recorders 35 BoJack of an animated Netflix series 19 “What have we here?” 36 Lymphatic mass near a tonsil 21 Increased, with “up” 37 Some stuffed animals

News

Across 1 Put on ___ of paint 6 Carmaker based in Munich 9 Former world power, for short 13 It’s formed by small droplets and shows white rings (unlike its colorful rainy counterpart) 15 “Go team!” cheer 16 Part of some organs 17 As an example 18 Party table item 20 Peace offering 22 Dir. opposite of WSW 23 Get up (get on up!) 24 Lout 25 “Just a sec” 27 Homer Simpson exclamation 28 Scone topper 29 August, in Avignon 30 Frolicked 33 Mary, Queen of ___ 34 Kitchen gadgets that really shred 37 Faker than fake 38 Gadget 39 Bygone Italian money 40 According to 41 Marshawn Lynch and Emmitt Smith, e.g. 44 Latent 47 Reznor’s band, initially 48 Pickled vegetable

triad-city-beat.com

CROSSWORD ”You’re the Toppings”--get a pizza the action.

SPREADING JOY ONE PINT AT A TIME Culture Shot in the Triad

Monday Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz 7:30 Tuesday Appetuesdays: Free small bites to pair with your beer. Wednesday Live music with J Timber and Joel Henry with special guests 8:30

Thursday Joymongers Band aka Levon Zevon aka Average Height Band 8:30

Puzzles

Answers from previous publication.

576 N. Eugene St. | Greensboro

Take charge of your mind, body and spirit Test pH balance, allergies, hormones Balance diet, lifestyle and emotions Create a personalized health and nutrition plan

(336) 456-4743

3723 West Market Street, Unitâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;B, Greensboro, NC 27403 jillclarey3@gmail.com www.thenaturalpathwithjillclarey.com