TCB Jan. 4, 2017 — Dreamin' Deacons

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point January 4 – 10, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

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Can this be the year Wake Forest emerges from the ACC basement?

by Anthony Harrison

PAGE 12

Celebrity Dining Guide PAGE 16

Welcome to the gym PAGE 23

Republican hijinks PAGES 5, 6 and 10

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January 4 – 10, 2017

CONTENTS

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

triad-city-beat.com

Kids and trains

by Brian Clarey

20 UP FRONT 3 4 5 5 5

OPINION

Editor’s Notebook City Life Calling BS Unsolicited Endorsement Trump’s America

10 10

Editorial: Too legit to quit Citizen Green: We’re through the

looking glass now

COVER

NEWS

12 Dreamin’ Deacons!

6 GOP hopes for SCOTUS help in redistricting case 8 New team relaunches Greene Street nightclub

CULTURE 16

Food: Celebrity Dining Guide:

Where the stars eat in GSO 17 Barstool: Mecca is in Asheboro 18 Music: Songwriting club pro-

motes weekly creativity and charity 20 Art: Storytelling unpacks and unsettles holiday traditions

CROSSWORD 21 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD 22 North Davie Street, GSO

TRIADITUDE ADJUSTMENT 23 Welcome to the gym (Sort of)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Almost 80,000 people live in Astoria, a single neighborhood in Queens, which itself is home to 2.2 million souls. And, of course, Queens is but one of five boroughs in a city that has 8.4 million residents, which is just 1.5 million shy of the entire state of North Carolina.

— Brian Clarey, in Editor’s Notebook, page 3

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

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EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

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EDITORIAL INTERN Joel Sronce intern@triad-city-beat.com

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

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

Cover photography by Brian Westerholt/Sports on Film Wake Forest forward John Collins spreads his wings in a Nov. 11 home game against Radford University. Collins leads Wake in scoring.

DIGITAL SALES Tynesha Brown

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2017 Beat Media Inc.

My sister’s apartment in Astoria occupies the fourth floor of a pale-brick walk-up, almost exactly parallel to the 30th Avenue elevated subway stop. Even into the night, the N and the Q trains roar by every 6 minutes, sounding very much like a furious storm descending on the neighborhood.

It’s not the kind of thing you can get used to in just a couple days — the length of my family’s stay in this part of New York City — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a couple of teenagers from North Carolina and their homesick dad.

I grew up just a few miles from here, I reminded my kids as we waited for an inbound N on the elevated platform. By the time I was their age I was riding these things around like a carny, I told them.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate the cities of the Triad, small as they are, for their accessibility, the low cost of living, the lack of real traffic. But there’s nothing like New York to put it all in perspective.

Almost 80,000 people live in Astoria, a single neighborhood in Queens, which itself is home to 2.2 million souls.

And, of course, Queens is but one of five boroughs in a city that has 8.4 million residents, which is just 1.5 million shy of the entire state of North Carolina.

We took the N, an express, all the way into Union Square in Manhattan — had I been on my We picked up the subgame a little better, we would have way again at the World picked up the 6 at Trade Center, the new Lexington Avenue Ground Zero station and shaved 10 minutes from the that looks like a whale’s trip — and walked tale surfacing from the south to Washington Square Park, concrete ocean. which apparently is no longer an open-air drug market, and the kosher, vegetarian Indian restaurant in Greenwich Village where we ate dinner.

We picked up the subway again at the World Trade Center, the new Ground Zero station that looks like a whale’s tail surfacing from the concrete ocean. A long time ago I used to catch the train here on my way to work in Jersey City, back when the tower still stood and the subway stations smelled like urine and garbage, which they no longer do.

But you can still see rats running along the tracks while you’re waiting on a train, if you look close enough. Things haven’t changed that much.

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January 4 – 10, 2017

CITY LIFE Jan. 4 – 10

by Joel Sronce

THURSDAY

Prose, Poetry & Protest: An Open Mic @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 7 p.m.

The Greensboro branch of the International Socialist Organization and others join together to heal, inspire and envision social change. The event includes an auction to raise funds for travel to Washington, DC for the inauguration protest on Jan. 20.

More info on the Facebook event page.

FRIDAY

In Pursuit of Justice @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), 7 p.m.

Be a part of the work-in-progress screening of In Pursuit of Justice — a film about Greg Taylor and his 17-year battle to gain his freedom after being wrongfully incarcerated. A Q&A with Taylor and his attorney, Chris Mumma, will follow. The film’s producers will be available for conversation after the Q&A. More info at inpursuitofjusticefilm.com.

SATURDAY We Stand with Aleppo: A Panel Discussion @ International Civil Rights Center & Museum (GSO), 4 p.m.

Stand in solidarity with the millions of Syrians who have died or been displaced since 2011. The panel discussion and vigil are free and open to the public. More info on the Facebook event page.

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Stargazing @ SciWorks (W-S), 5:30 p.m.

Bring the kids to a free astronomy observation hosted by SciWorks and the Forsyth Astronomical Society in the SciWorks parking lot in northern Winston-Salem.

Enjoy the use of professional telescopes, too! For more info and weather updates, visit sciworks.org.

The Rose Tattoo @ Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance (W-S), 8 p.m.

As a part of the by-the-book series of staged readings, actors will read Tennessee Williams’ Tony Award-winning play about the life of widow Serafina Delle Rose. More info can be found at wstheatrealliance.org.

Southern Eyes @ Blue Bourbon Jacks (HP), 10 p.m.

The Winston-Salem band brings its rock, soul, country and blues influences to High Point. The four members draw from different backgrounds and eras of musical history to create a unique sound and energy. More info on the band’s Facebook page.

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New year’s resolutions

Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

I didn’t detect any real warmth for the Wolverines; it was more the case that the Florida Gators fans were only rooting for the Seminoles to lose. There was some trash talking about whether Michigan star player Jabrill Peppers’ decision to sit out the game was motivated at least in part by a desire to improve his prospects as a draft pick. Whether gloating by the Florida State fans or a resentment by the other side that Michigan wasn’t putting all its resources into the game, it all amounted to a cloud of ill will hanging over Peppers.

There were some truly spectacular plays: a record-setting 92-yard passing touchdown by Florida State running back Dalvin Cook, who seemed to shrug off would-be interdictors like flies, and a straight-line pass by Michigan QB Wilton Speight that looked like a cannonball blasted into enemy territory. Indeed, Michigan played hard in the second half and scored a touchdown to take a 30-27 lead with less than two minutes on the clock. But Florida State turned the game around with an improbable touchdown of their own with only 40 seconds left, and then fended off Michigan’s last-ditch efforts to score. That’s drama.

Sportsball

I don’t really get excited about college football, not to mention my indignation about the long-term psychological damage that the sport inflicts on its players.

Or so I told myself until I found myself watching Florida State University Seminole’s matchup with the University of Michigan Wolverines during the Orange Bowl on Dec. 30. First of all, by all objective measures it was a great game. Second of all, I was emotionally primed, and the setting was totally conducive.

My aunt and uncle’s place in Fort Myers, Fla. is set up like a sports bar, with a wide-screen, high-resolution TV in the living room and a generously apportioned unit on the screened-in patio next to the pool, which is also equipped with a dartboard and small fridge stocked with beer. There’s also a third TV at the end of the kitchen counter. Two signs displayed on the patio — “Gator Zone” and “Nole Zone” — testify to the divided loyalties of the house. Half my family members were pulling for Michigan, or rather, against their in-state rival’s success.

Florida State seemed to be consistently outflanking and out-hustling Michigan at every turn in the first half.

Culture

by Jordan Green

Cover Story

The 2016 Orange Bowl

The House Republicans’ move to subjugate the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics — without debate, and in the middle of the night — probably started in December, when longtime political blowhard Newt Gingrich suggested to NPR talk-show host Diane Rehm that the normal rules of presidential ethics don’t apply to Trump, and that, as president, Trump can appoint whomever he wants regardless of ethical concerns.

“He could simply say, ‘Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anyone finds them to have behaved against the rules.’ Period,” he told Rehm.

“Technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority.”

Under the new plan, the ethics office, which since its establishment in 2008 has sent several lobbyists and elected officials to jail, would fall under the purview of the House Committee on Ethics, which is controlled by the party in power and has never sent anyone to jail, not even Charlie Rangel, who probably should have done time.

The story gets more interesting by the minute.

It was rank-and-file House Republicans who set this plan in motion and executed it, against the wishes of GOP leadership like Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, according to the Washington Post.

But then, on Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that the House GOP should be focusing on tax reform and healthcare instead of weakening the “unfair” independent ethics watchdog. From there, strange things started happening pretty quickly.

Ryan, who was against de-clawing the ethics office, issued a statement an hour after Trump’s tweet defending the action. Interesting, because later in the day the House would hold its election for speaker, which Ryan won just before press time.

At around the same time, House Republicans started backing off their plan, falling in line with their president-elect on this one. And Kellyanne Conway, who at this point is nothing but a Trump spokesperson though she is expected to be in his cabinet, appeared on MSNBC the same day supporting the House Republicans, who by that time had already started singing a different tune. By the time the legislation came up for a vote on Tuesday, all language about the OCE had been removed.

It’s pretty obvious that Trump is just tweeting on the fly here, against even his own self-interests. But the beehive frenzy in the wake of these announcements is fantastical, even if they always seem to happen at press time.

Opinion

Recycle this paper.

The ethics of ethics

by Brian Clarey

News

wobble. At the very least.

And what does it matter? So we didn’t start biking to work, or only eating local, or buying LED-lights or composting. What did we think was going to happen?

Even with good intentions, our tiny changes do nothing to bring down the terrible systems that are in place or mend the path on which our planet travels. Our toothless approaches do nothing for the millions in this country without adequate food or clean water, without jobs or justice or even the comfort that their lives in the coming months will in any way resemble the stability they desire.

The only tiny change we need is a spelling one. What will your new year’s revolutions be? Now’s no time for BS.

Up Front

by Joel Sronce On new year’s resolutions, Calvin once delivered an all too familiar complaint to Hobbes: “Here another year has gone by and everything’s still the same! There’s still pollution and war and stupidity and greed! Things haven’t changed! I say what kind of future is this?! I thought things were supposed to improve! I thought the future was supposed to be better!”

Hobbes, in his animal wisdom, replies, “The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.”

And here it is.

I’m writing this on Jan. 1, as many of us hold our feeble resolutions intact and in tow, but by the time you’re reading this — as soon as Jan. 4 — they’ll have begun to

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January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

GOP leaders seek SCOTUS’ relief from court-ordered redistricting

by Jordan Green

The Republican leadership in Raleigh wants the US Supreme Court to strike down a lower court’s order to redraw legislative districts ruled to be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly wants the US Supreme Court to intervene against a court order to redraw state legislative districts before the body convenes on Jan. 11.

Lawyers for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore filed an emergency application to stay the order to US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Dec. 30, pleading the cause of state’s rights.

“The order deals a coup de grace to federalism, trampling on all three branches of state government and the voting rights of the people themselves: It effectively overrules a judgment of the state supreme court; it modifies the constitutional requirements for service in the state legislature; it forces newly elected state legislators to spend the critical first weeks and months of their terms creating new districting plans instead of following through on their campaign promises; it orders the elections board to fund and administer special elections; and it retroactively reduces the effect of millions of votes cast by North Carolinians,” the application reads.

“If respect for the dignity and residual sovereignty of the states is to mean anything in this context, it must at least mean that a federal district court may not inflict those harms upon a sovereign state and its voters without any discussion of the competing equities and before this court can review the merits of the underlying decision that ostensibly justifies this wholesale disregard of state authority,” the application continues.

In their appeal to Chief Justice Roberts, state legislative leaders are reaching out to the author of the infamous 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, which lifted the requirement that jurisdictions, including some counties in North Carolina, with a history of discrimination obtain preclearance from the US Justice Department to make electoral changes. Soon after the decision, the General Assembly

2011 state House district plan

passed what is widely considered to be the most restrictive voting law in the country. The law was upheld by US District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder, but overturned on appeal last year by a three-judge federal panel that included Judge James A. Wynn. The court found that the law targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

In a separate opinion written by Judge Wynn in August, the courts found that 28 legislative districts drawn in 2011 to include large concentrations of African-American voters “constitute racial gerrymanders in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United Sates Constitution.” Judge Schroeder, who had ruled opposite Wynn in the election law case, joined Wynn in the opinion, along with US District Court Catherine Eagles. At the time, the threejudge panel concluded that, despite the unconstitutionality of the current Republican-drawn plan, ordering the postponement of the November 2016 election would “create considerable confusion, inconvenience, and uncertainty among voters, candidates and election officials.” Then, on Nov. 29, the judges issued an order setting a March 15 deadline for the General Assembly to redraw the 28 districts. Noting that the General Assembly had taken no action on the matter to date, Wynn wrote, “Nothing has prevented the state from holding hearings, commissioning studies, developing evidence and asking experts to draw proposed new districts over this three-month period.”

The March 15 deadline is reasonable, Wynn wrote, considering that it “gives

COURTESY

2011 state Senate district plan

the state a total of seven months from the time the districts were held to be unconstitutional, which is longer than it took the 2011 legislature to redistrict the entire state.”

The courts have ordered the state to hold a special primary election for the affected districts in late August or early September and a special general election in early November — a schedule that aligns with many municipal elections across the state, including races for Greensboro City Council. The General Assembly is ordered to redraw 28 new legislative districts, including state House districts 57, 58, 60 and Senate districts 28 and 32 in Guilford and Forsyth counties, and any other districts that need to be redrawn due to a ripple effect. The defendants have said that 70 percent of all districts will likely be affected. In ruling that the state legislative districts are unconstitutional, Wynn turned to the Supreme Court’s 1993 Shaw v. Reno decision, which found that racial gerrymandering “reinforces the perception that members of the same racial group… think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.” The Shaw decision — dealing with North Carolina’s serpentine 12th Congressional District, which at the time snaked along Interstate 85 from Durham to Charlotte — also found that race-based districting sends the “pernicious” message to representatives that “their primary obligation is to represent only the members of [a single racial] group.”

The three-judge panel that recently overturned North Carolina’s state leg-

COURTESY

islative districting plan concluded “that race was the predominant factor motivating the drawing of all challenged districts,” adding that “defendants have not shown that their use of race to draw any of these districts was narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest.”

Specifically, the courts found that the General Assembly failed a crucial test required for the permissible use of race as a factor in redistricting — evidence of “racial bloc voting that, absent some remedy, would enable the majority usually to defeat the minority group’s candidate of choice.”

Wynn wrote in his order that Sen. Bob Rucho and Rep. David Lewis, the two redistricting chairs, testified during the trial “that they never made any determination whether majority bloc voting existed at such a level that the candidate of choice of African-American voters would usually be defeated without a VRA remedy.”

Wynn said Rucho and Lewis misinterpreted the law in presuming they were obligated to draw districts with a black voting age population of 50 percent or more. “Proportionality should not be sought if it requires destroying ‘communities in which minority citizens are able to form coalitions with voters from other racial and ethnic groups, having no need to be a majority within a single district in order to elect candidates of their choice,’” he wrote. “In other word, proportionality is not required, not a safe harbor, and not to be pursued at the cost of fracturing effective coalitional districts.”

State Senate District 28, which covers

Up Front

Wynn’s order indicates the courts will keep a close watch on how many black voters the Republican mapmakers concentrate in the newly drawn districts: The order requires the General Assembly to provide a factual basis tethered to the Voting Rights Act as justification for any district drawn with a black voting age population in excess of 50 percent.

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Cover Story

a large portion of Greensboro and then reaches over to grab a chunk of African-American voters in High Point, is illustrative. A so-called “coalition” or “crossover” district, it held a black voting population of 47.2 percent in the 2010 Census. Katie Dorsett, an African-American lawmaker, who held the seat until that year, won successive elections in the district without difficulty.

Gladys Robinson, her chosen successor, won election in the district in 2010, and the next year the General Assembly redrew the lines to increase the black voting age population to 56.5 percent, transforming it into a minority-majority district.

In a so-called “jurisdictional statement” filed in the US Supreme Court on Nov. 15, the Republican General Assembly leaders complained that “plaintiffs want to further constrain the legislature by forcing it to draw coalition or crossover districts instead of majority-minority districts, which will produce the fully intended side-effect of requiring the Republican-controlled legislature to maximize Democratic partisan advantage.”

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Crossword

The Merit Pit Bull Foundation strives for a compassionate world where pit bull type dogs live in responsible homes and where owner education, training and anti-cruelty legislation support all pet owners regardless of breed.

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January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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New management team and upgrade re-launches Greene Street

by Jordan Green

The storied Greene Street Club, long a Greensboro mainstay for dance nights and rock concerts, heads into a new phase under a fresh management team.

The revamped Greene Street Club got its big reveal on New Year’s Eve with a dance party that drew about 700 people, complete with confetti machines and CO2 cannons. The bash provided a new management team with an opportunity to show off upgraded lighting and sound, and the staff to break in a new POS system.

“It was really just upgrading the building so it’ll appeal to the masses, not just the dive-bar crowd,” said Mike Clark, one of four partners in Greene Street Nightlife, which began contracting management of Greene Street Club with building owners Kenny Efird and Robbie Efird in November.

The new management team, which includes Clark, Jon Southall, Joe Sheppard and San Bach, financed the building improvements out of pocket, Clark said. The upgrades are meant to draw a new clientele to the downtown Greensboro club.

“People have a standard; when your building doesn’t meet that — with downtown improving there are more out-of-towners visiting,” Clark said.

“We’re kind of going for the Miami-big city, New York look, so when they come in they feel more comfortable.

“With the better clientele — I don’t want to say that.” He paused and reformulated. “With the better clientele, it’s about the long term and not just that one hit.”

The upgrades also include new intelligent lighting that projects colors around the dance floor, and a new color theme that matches white paint with silver upholstered columns — all of which Clark hopes will allow the illuminated glass bar to shine.

Clark and his team have been working with the Efird brothers for about five years and are responsible for the Friday night hip-hop dance party, a mainstay of the club, but under the new operating arrangement they are taking full responsibility for booking entertainment.

The club’s Facebook page shows no activity since Dec. 12, but that’s far from

an accurate reflection. The club will relaunch its regular Thursday college night on Jan. 19 with an EDM open format. They plan to do a grand opening of the roof area in April.

Greene Street has long functioned as both a dance club and rock venue since the Efirds purchased the old bank building in 2001, sometimes weighted more to one side than the other depending on which promoters the owners were working with. Beginning in 2006, when the Efirds established a partnership with promoter Joe Ferguson, the club became a focal point of the Greensboro music scene, with packed houses for popular local acts like House of Fools and Urban Sophisticates. Sullivan, a favorite act in the emo scene, and Kudzu Wish, an acclaimed indie-punk band, both played their final concerts at Greene Street. The roster of notable Greensboro bands that have performed at Greene Street also includes Tiger Bear Wolf and Holy Ghost Tent Revival. The venue has also showcased national acts like Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil and rock-and-roll pianist Leon Russell.

As recently as last fall, Greene Street had been booking rock shows through Crank It Loud, a booking agency owned

by Joel Collins, formerly the singer of the metal/hard rock band Bloodjinn.

Despite the venue’s recent parting with Collins, Clark said he still plans to book live music, including rock and hip hop, at Greene Street. He’s event talked to a promoter that specializes in bluegrass and beach music.

“We had Crank It Loud here; they’ve chosen to go with other venues,” Clark said. “People have been blowing up our phones, so we’re just waiting to figure out our options. We’re promoters ourselves, so we might not have to outsource that much of it.”

Clark said he’s already received a commitment from rapper Dave East, who is signed to Nas’ Mass Appeal Records, and is in talks with the Houston rapper Riff Raff.

“We’re slowly filling up the calendar,” he said. “That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”

Mike Clark is part of the new management team at Greene Street Club.

JORDAN GREEN

We’re hiring!

TCB is looking for a freelance music writer. If you’ve always dreamed of being Cameron Crowe and enjoy listening to disparate types of music, this job’s for you. Send a resume and writing samples to brian@triad-city-beat.com to apply.

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Up Front

News

Opinion

Cover Story

Culture

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January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

Too legit to quit Gov. Roy Cooper wanted to begin his administration as soon as legitimately possible, choosing to be sworn in just after the stroke of midnight signified the first day of the year. Had he waited until dawn, it’s possible the legislature could have slipped in another special session before he made his oath.

Here in the Old North State, once a proud exemplar of the enlightened South and now mentioned in the same bless-your-heart tones as Alabama and Mississippi, the functions of our government have devolved into the crudest sort of political game.

Cooper scored points for getting the jump on the clock, just as his predecessor scored points for playing it out until the last minute, with two special sessions in the 11th hour, each designed to score more points.

In North Carolina, and on the national political stage as well, the easiest way to score points these days is to paint the opposition as illegitimate. The belief that Obama was born in Kenya was the only thing a lot of haters — the president-elect among them — had to hold onto in the face of the first black president.

Trump, as a minority president, has already faced legitimacy issues due to his 3-million vote deficit on election night, and various conflicts of interest and outright violations of the Constitution both before and since.

McCrory tried to delegitimize Cooper using the charge of voter fraud. And when the State Board of Elections couldn’t find any, McCrory and his party delegitimized them by abolishing the SBOE and creating something new in its place.

The same piece of legislation literally made Cooper’s post less legit: a dramatic stripping of powers that seems to be payback for something that happened in 1989. Cooper, citing legitimacy questions of his own, filed suit on Friday, causing a judge to block the new law.

This game of legitimacy and illegitimacy is mostly one of opinion or numbers games. But oddly enough, the General Assembly that passed HB 2, SB 2 and every other heavy-handed piece of legislation is legitimately illegitimate.

The districts that defined the NC legislature’s Class of 2015 — and the one before it — were overturned by a federal judge in December.

That decision, naturally, has already been painted as an illegitimate action by an activist judge.

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CITIZEN GREEN

We are through the looking glass now Apologies to Triad City Beat Publisher Brian Clarey for swiping one of his observations: We are truly through the looking glass now.

A couple statements of principle are in order. All power should be regardby Jordan Green ed with skepticism, and it should be considered a given that ulterior motives lie behind every official pronouncement. That said, citizens in a democracy are obligated to seek information from reputable journalistic outlets, discern the truth and take a stand.

Likewise, honorable journalists are obliged to wrestle with murky information and make a good-faith effort to present it coherently. For either journalists or citizens to throw up their hands and conclude that the truth is unknowable is a copout; despots thrive in an environment where truth is considered relative.

So what to make of the Obama administration’s abrupt, pre-New Year’s Eve expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and its multi-agency verification of meddling in the US presidential election by Russian intelligence agencies? And just to take this to another level of ontological strangeness, what to make of the fact that today’s progressives — the political heirs of the peaceniks who argued for de-escalation of the nuclear arms race — are the most concerned about Russian interference in our elections? How is it that the new Republican president-elect and some conservatives, supposedly descendants of the last century’s hardline Cold Warriors, are most likely to dismiss allegations of Russian meddling? How did that switch take place?

There’s too much circumstantial evidence to dismiss the administration’s case against Russia. Added to Vladimir Putin’s reported dislike of Hillary Clinton, the Russian president had a clear favorite in candidate Donald Trump, who has said he would consider lifting sanctions against Moscow and recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, while also saying that his commitment to defending the Baltic states against attack would be conditioned on whether “they fulfill their [financial] obligations to us.” Adding to Putin’s clear motive, there’s the obvious result that the breach of emails and drip of embarrassing disclosures targeted one party — the one whose nominee was Clinton.

The particulars of malicious cyber activity by Russian intelligence — given the sexy operational code name “Grizzly Steppe” by US officials — is detailed in a joint analysis report released on Dec. 29 by the FBI and Homeland Security National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center. According to the report, two different Russian intelligence actors, identified as Advanced Persistent Threat, or APT29, and APT28 “participated in the intrusion into a US political party” (read: Democratic National Commit-

tee). In the spring of 2016, the report says, APT28 used a spear-phishing email to trick “recipients into changing their passwords through a fake webmail domain hosted on APT28 operational infrastructure.

Using the harvested credentials, APT28 was able to gain access and steal content, likely leading to the exfiltration of information from multiple senior party members. The US government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed.”

That all sounds credible enough. And yet there’s a disconnect.

Administration officials, speaking on background on Dec. 29, announced sanctions against nine entities and individuals, including two Russian intelligence services, three Russian companies that have provided cyber services to Russian intelligence — Special Technology Center St. Petersburg, Zorsecurity and the Autonomous Noncommercial Organization — along with two “notorious cyber criminals.”

One unidentified senior administration official said the purpose of the sanctions was to make clear that “we will not tolerate the abuse of our systems, including our election systems, by foreign actors.”

On the other hand, the administration has not made any case that 35 Russian diplomats accused of acting as “intelligence agents” — it’s fairly routine for intelligence agencies to spy on each other under the cloak of diplomatic mission — had anything to do with manipulating the election. As to whether two Russian recreation facilities in Maryland and New York were just generally being used as “intelligence compounds” or whether they were specifically utilized to disrupt the election, the trust us factor comes into play: An unidentified administration official responded that the question “obviously kind of gets pretty precise on intelligence equities, so I don’t think we can speak to that.”

To further complicate the chain of events, the administration has said that its actions are also a response to ongoing harassment of US diplomats in Moscow. Explaining the conflation, one unidentified official said Obama directed his administration to “look at these actions as interconnected,” describing it as sharing “the same hostile posture and the same flagrant violation of basic norms of international behavior.”

These official sanctions and revelations come in advance of a more comprehensive report on Russian interference in the US election, so the timing at least interesting.

It’s tempting to see a grand conspiracy of intelligence spooks manufacturing the episode to manipulate US public opinion in support for a new Cold War. But it’s probably more likely the case that the Obama administration made a flat-footed attempt to box the incoming Trump administration into a diplomatic spat with Russia. But Putin and Trump were both too smart to fall for it.

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We also need a real deal, local “nonNC” BBQ place (brisket, ribs, chicken, sausage, done over real wood) for those of us from Louisiana, Texas, etc.

Also time for a “fine dining” Mexican/ Central American place.

Eric B, via triad-city-beat.com

Culture

Take charge of your mind, body and spirit

Editor’s Note: While the author did enjoy an excellent meal at Southern Roots in 2016, Jamestown is not in Triad City Beat’s coverage area.

Cover Story

336.323.1288

Opinion

gatecityvineyard.com

I enjoyed this article very much. I was sort of surprised Southern Roots in Jamestown was not listed anywhere.

Thanks for all the information.

Marlene Lawson, via triad-city-beat. com

News

Whatever your thoughts about church, whatever your beliefs about God … you are welcome here.

Up Front

At the Vineyard you can come as you are and be yourself.

We went to Captain Chen’s Gourmet China tonight — OMG. Absolutely for the adventurer! Fantastic, exotic and generous. Flavors never stopped. Can’t wait to go back. Thanks, Eric!

Joel Bennett, Greensboro

Well done, President Obama The departure of President Obama brings both joy and pain. It has been an unbelievable joy supporting the leader of the free world for the last eight years.

His family has been a model of dignity and service to the citizens. He has been a role model for the greater good of America. I vividly recall the serious recession our country faced when Obama was sworn in. I vividly recall the bodies of American troops draped in the American flag returning home from Afghanistan. The spirit of depression among average Americans was overwhelming. Obama was the catalyst for hope and economic progress for the middle class. Such joy emanated in the spirit of Americans and ethnic pride soared in African Americans.

It will be painful to witness one of America’s most effective presidents become a private citizen on Jan 20. He accomplished historical feats in spite of organized efforts to stop him. His place in history will reflect a true leader against all odds during a critical time in our history. President Obama deserves some joy after leading the free world for eight years. It will be painful to see him leave the White House, but he has provided so much joy for so many for eight years. Thank you, President Obama.

Fleming El-Amin, Winston-Salem

triad-city-beat.com

Gate City Vineyard is a modern, Christian church that exists to serve the community around us. Our desire is to help people of all ages and backgrounds grow in their understanding of God.

Foodie frenzy Thank you, thank you for steering us to Taaza [“The top eats of 2016 that you can’t miss in 2017”; by Eric Ginsburg; Dec. 29, 2016]. It is as wonderful as you’ve said.

Art Kainz, Kernersville

by Jelisa Castrodale; Dec. 29, 2016], but my husband and friends will get that “look” on their faces if I do. So, let me just express my sincere gratitude.

Happy new year. (Note the lack of exclamation point.)

Angel Schroeder, High Point

274 4810

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January 4 – 10, 2017

Can this be the year Wake Forest emerges from the ACC basement?

Cover Story

by Anthony Harrison

12

Demon Deacons guard Keyshawn Woods nailed the long shot from the left wing, releasing a coil of tension among the Wake Forest University fans in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The crowd erupted in an explosion of cheers as the scoreboard updated: 64-51 in Wake’s favor with under seven minutes to go. It was the second half of their first home game of conference play, against Clemson University on New Year’s Eve, and Woods’ three finished off a 10-0 run against the Tigers. The shot secured the biggest lead for the Deacons, a game that Wake had largely dominated.

in the 2004-’05 season.

But no matter how talented individual Deacons may be, they haven’t been able to re-establish a foothold in the ACC. One organizational woe possibly holding back the Demon Deacons has been a lack of consistency in the coaching department.

Since Skip Prosser’s unexpected passing from a massive heart attack in 2007, Wake Forest has hired three new head coaches. Prosser’s protégé Dino Gaudio took over the late coach’s charge in the middle of the season, rebounding from tragedy to help the Deacs post two 20-win seasons in a row.

But then, Wake Forest fired Gaudio at the end of the 2009-’10 season.

Athletic Director Ron Wellman cited the team’s lack of late-season and postseason wins as the deciding factor. Gaudio’s postseason record was 1-5, his only win being the previously mentioned So with seven minutes to go and a 13-point pad between first-round NCAA tournament victory over the Longhorns. them and the Tigers, it seemed like the Deacs bagged the W. It “We can put up with a disappointment,” Wellman said at the would be a fantastic way to roll into the new year. time. “We have disappointments all the time. But there is a pattern But, sadly, that’s all in the past. here that needed to be addressed, a three-year pattern that needed to be addressed.”

BOB HEBERT/WFU Unfortunately, Wake Forest’s troubles only worsened after Wake Forest guard addressing the alleged problem.

For the better part of the last decade, the Wake Forest men’s Bryant Crawford Gaudio’s replacement, Jeff Bzdelik, could not replicate his pulls up for a basketball team has struggled, a damaged program lodged in predecessor’s success. After three losing seasons and a 17-16 jumper during the the strongest basketball conference in the country. They’re the Clemson game on record in 2014, Bzdelik abdicated from Wake Forest and became Triad’s home team in the Atlantic Coast Conference, but save New Year’s Eve. an assistant coach in the NBA. for some Deacon grads, people here pull for any of the other Wake next hired Danny Manning. A College Basketball Hall three North Carolina teams instead. of Fame inductee, Manning won two national championships with the Wake Forest last appeared in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament University of Kansas Jayhawks, both as an assistant to head coach Bill Self in 2010, squeaking by the University of Texas Longhorns in the first round in 2008 and as a power forward 20 years prior; he still holds the record for only to lose to No. 1-seed University of Kentucky in the second. Years earmost points scored in the Jayhawks’ storied history. lier the Deacs ascended to the Sweet 16 in 2004, but the team hasn’t made No matter his bona fides, over Manning’s first two seasons, the Demon a significant run in March since then.

Deacons have a cumulative record of 24-39.

Their luck in the ACC hasn’t been better. The Deacons did secure a regular-season ACC title in 2003, but NC State upset them in the semifinals of the tournament proper. Wake last clinched an outright ACC title in 1996; it was their second consecutive championship led by living legend Wake Forest began conference play this season with a road game in TalTim Duncan. lahassee, Fla. against the No. 20 Florida State Seminoles on Dec. 28, 2016.

While Duncan left a long shadow, Wake hasn’t suffered from a complete Their record was 9-3; they’d dropped close road games against Xavier dearth of talent in the ensuing years. The most notable former Deacon in University and Northwestern University, and defending national champions the NBA is current Los Angeles Clippers point guard and Winston-Salem Villanova University had blown them out of the water, 96-77, when they native Chris Paul — nine-time NBA All-Star, maybe the best at his position visited Charleston, SC back on Nov. 18. in his generation of NBA players. He played for Wake Forest for two But Wake had also destroyed Louisiana State University in their most seasons, leading them to their first-ever No. 1 ranking for two weeks early

Bryant Crawford (above) leads W

triad-city-beat.com

Wake Forest’s guard corps with 14.5 points and 5.8 assists per game.

BRIAN WESTERHOLT/SPORTS ON FILM

13

January 4 – 10, 2017 Cover Story

14

recent home game on Dec. 22, holding the Tigers to 76 while scoring an astonishing 110 points.

At that point, the ’Noles were 12-1, having lost only to Temple University, 89-86, on Nov. 24. The Seminoles boasted deep talent and length for days, with 11 players standing 6-foot-6 or taller.

Regardless, Wake came out swinging, securing the tip despite all that Seminole height, leading to a quick three to put the Deacs on the board. On the other side of the court, Wake defended well, crowding the paint and throwing Florida State off their guard. Wake Forest kept on the offensive, with Keyshawn Woods hitting a mid-range jumper and Bryant Crawford sinking two free throws.

When you’re an unranked team, a 7-0 run against No. 20 isn’t the worst way to start. It makes sense that Woods and Crawford would lead the charge.

Woods, a redshirt sophomore from Gastonia, sat out last season after transferring from UNC-Charlotte, standard practice for student-athletes switching schools.

While with the 49ers, Woods came off the bench as a highly valuable sixth man, playing all 32 games and starting three. He averaged 8.4 points per game, breaching double digits in 13 appearances, including 19 points on seven-of-10 shooting against the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Most impressively, Woods led Conference USA in three-point shooting, hitting 46.6 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.

In this, his first season for the Demon Deacs, Woods has been a more-than-occasional starter, averaging 13.4 points with 54.3 percent accuracy; amazingly, his eye has improved at range, nailing 47.9 percent of his three-point attempts.

Crawford, a true sophomore starter from Silver Spring, Md., is not one to be outdone. He started 30 games last season, racking up 13.8 points, 4.4 assists and 1.7 steals on average. Crawford led conference first-years in those latter two categories and was named to the All-ACC Freshman Team. In their first-round ACC Tournament loss to NC State, Crawford picked the ball six times, tying the tournament record. He also snagged ACC Rookie of the Week honors in February of last year, scoring 20 points, pulling down six rebounds, feeding six assists and snagging six steals against the University of Pittsburgh.

The last Deacon to record a 20-5-5-5 game was Chris Paul.

Crawford has performed admirably this season, too, logging 14.5 points per game on 45.9 percent shooting from the floor.

Florida State’s own star guards finally struck back with a three-pointer from the next ZIP code, but Woods answered with an offensive rebound and another jumper.

The Seminoles nailed their own bucket beyond the arc two possessions later.

The Seminoles’ objective for the first half became clear: Hit threes to demoralize the Demon Deacons, reflecting the current trend in NBA play. But for the most part, those threes were not landing through the early minutes of the first half.

Meanwhile, Wake Forest looked damn good on both

sides of the ball. They were scrapping and hustling, putting strong defensive pressure on the Seminoles and making smart plays to make quick buckets, particularly from forward Dinos Mitoglou.

Starting junior Mitoglou, a 6-foot-10 import from Thessaloniki, Greece, has appeared in every game possible since his arrival at Wake Forest, starting in all but one game last season. He posted his first ACC double-double in a matchup against the University of Louisville last January and added two more over the rest of conference play.

This season, Mitoglou averages 10.3 points per contest, and shoots 39.1 percent from beyond the arc.

It never hurts to have a 255-pound forward with accuracy from the three-point line.

A sneaky bounce pass inside from Woods, and Mitoglou hit a jumper in the paint. A foul by Florida State forward Jarquez Smith, and Mitoglou sank the second free throw. Another feed from Crawford following a steal led to a quick Mitoglou layup. Not one to be selfish, Mitoglou next dished the rock to Woods on the wing for a clutch three. The score stood at 19-12.

But Florida State made a quiet and quick 12-3 run, predicated on long-range sniping, and the ’Noles led 2422 with 10 minutes left in the first half. Wake stopped and ran themselves, but Florida State employed the full-court press. Soon, the ’Noles woke up again. Their press putting the Deacs out of sorts, and quick baskets put them up 3938 with two minutes remaining in the period.

Florida State failed to land a coup de grace, and Wake snuck ahead on two free throws. The half closed with little ado.

Considering the competition, Wake Forest had plenty to be happy about going into the locker room. It was only the second time this season the Seminoles trailed at the half; despite shooting 41.4 percent from the field, they’d chucked 15 shots from long range and only made six of them.

The Deacons just needed to keep it up for another 20 minutes.

The New Year’s Eve game against Clemson began with jingoistic Wake fandom. The Demon Deacon revved up a motorcycle in the home-side tunnel and rumbled onto the hardwood before team introductions. Tall, stainless-steel pyrotechnic towers spouted fire as the emcee announced Wake’s starting five. The pep band blasted the fight song, and the amped-up crowd clapped along, screaming, “Go Deacs!”

Coming home put Wake Forest at ease. After a bobble off the Tigers’ paws, Wake secured the tip, and Woods sank a fade to put the Deacons on the board. Clemson replied on the other end, then blocked Wake’s three-point attempt. A back-and-forth ensued, finally broken by a tiptoe layup from Deacons forward John Collins.

Collins, a sophomore from West Palm Beach, Fla., was rather quiet in the Florida State game. But he racks up great numbers without making a big show of it. He’s the Deacs’ leading scorer this season, posting 16.4 points per game.

After coming off the bench in 30 games last year and starting one, Collins has proven his worth as a full-time starting forward despite his youth. But you can’t argue with the figures he puts up in the post. Along with his

scoring — accomplished at 60-percent accuracy, mind you — Collins leads Wake in rebounding with 9.6 per game and a total of 135, leaving the rest of his team in the dust.

He pounds the offensive glass, tearing down 49 offensive rebounds thus far, twice as many as his closest competitor, Dinos Mitoglou. He’s a dominant presence inside for Wake Forest, and maybe their strongest overall threat.

Following an official timeout, Mitoglou and Woods tacked on shots from long range to put Wake up 14-6 after seven and a half minutes, drawing deafening cheers from the home crowd and forcing a Clemson timeout.

Wake effectively held Clemson at bay for much of the first half, despite the Tigers’ greatest efforts. Clemson’s successful layup in the last five seconds set the score at 36-31 right before the buzzer.

But the Tigers roared out of the locker room, their defense tighter and more aggressive. Clemson drew within 1 after five and a half minutes, and after a five-point run made the score 42-41. But Crawford nipped the rally with a clutch wing shot. Tiger forward Elijah Thomas soon had to hit the bench after racking up four fouls, leaving Collins more room to extend his double-digit scoring effort with basket after basket.

A hitch in the effort: Greg McClinton fouled Clemson guard Marcquise Reed as he sank a three. He threw his hands to his face, gritting his teeth in frustration. Reed made the and-one, hoisting his team within striking distance at 54-51.

Soon enough, Crawford sank yet another trey. And the crowd made some noise.

After Clemson committed an offensive foul, Collins banged in a layup on the inside.

McClinton redeemed himself with a put-back, extending their lead to double digits, 61-51, and a 30-second Clemson timeout couldn’t halt their momentum. The Demon Deacons seemed unstoppable. But, as it had before, things fell apart.

Finishing strong might show a team’s maturity and ability better than any other metric. And while Wake Forest boasts plenty of talent, they have trouble finishing.

The Florida State game, which saw the Deacons in fine form against a formidable foe for much of the matchup, ended in disaster. The Triad’s team crested after Wake guard Mitchell Wilbekin secured a five-point lead with a three-ball, setting the score at 66-61 with 9 minutes left in the game. But then the Seminoles went on the warpath, their star guards sinking shots from any range. Four and a half minutes later, Woods finally made a layup, but the damage was done: Florida State had rocketed ahead, scoring 17 unanswered points. After another tortuous 4:30, the final buzzer blared, and the Demon Deacons were beaten, 88-72.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, a high crest again crashed down on the Demon Deacons in the final minutes of a game that had been theirs.

The slip began quietly enough after Clemson hit a jumper. Reed brought the Tigers within single digits with a quick three. Reed then picked Woods and made two free throws following a foul by Crawford.

Woods and Wilbekin expanded Wake’s lead back to 10, but Wilbekin’s layup with five minutes remaining would be the final Deac score. They missed all of their last nine

BRIAN WESTERHOLT/ SPORTS ON FILM

triad-city-beat.com

Demon Deacons guard Keyshawn Woods shoots a three from the wing during a home game at LJVM Coliseum. Woods is Wake Forest’s most efficient long-range sniper at 47.9 percent.

shots.

Two threes by Clemson guards bookended a long dry spell. Then, with 1:15 to go, Reed assisted forward Donte Grantham for an and-one layup, resulting in the first Clemson lead of the game, 70-68. The Deacons, desperate to quit the run, resorted to fouling, but the Tigers kept landing their free throws. Time slowed to a grinding halt. Finally, Clemson slammed a dunk with eight seconds left, a humiliating end to a hard-fought game, the visitors landing the win, 73-68.

In the back tunnel of the coliseum, the cheerleaders filed into their locker room.

“Oh, Deacs, Deacs, Deacs…” one sighed.

Clemson head coach Brad Brownell, seemingly exhausted, debriefed the media in the press room.

“We kept hangin’ in there, hangin’ in there, hangin’ in there, and we got some good stops,” Brownell said. “We were fortunate. We didn’t play the way you should play to win a game like this for 32, 34 minutes.”

Coach Manning, frowning and quiet, added to Brownell’s analysis of the game’s end.

“They made plays down the stretch to put themselves in position to win,” Manning said. “All games that you lose are a hard pill to swallow and upsetting and all that. But we were in command of this game for almost 36 minutes, and we weren’t able to close it out.”

What looked like a promising season, 9-3 before the Florida State game last week, now appeared mediocre.

Yet their stars performed admirably. In the New Year’s Eve game, Collins recorded his third 20-point game, on top of seven rebounds and two blocks. Crawford and Woods both tallied 16 points. They slayed from the free-throw line, hitting 10 of 11 — a small consolation, but considering the team’s previous problems from the charity stripe, a marked improvement.

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are a good basketball team. They just went cold at a time where they needed to smoke the Tigers out of the coliseum. It was not for lack of talent; it’s an intangible, inexplicable problem that betrays the numbers these young men consistently produce.

“It’s been a pattern here for us at Wake Forest for the past two years,” Woods said following the game. “The coaching staff can’t do nothing about it; the Xs and Os is fine. It’s us as a team that’s going have to fix this problem if we want to be a contender in the ACC.” Though still decent at 9-5, the two losses last week suggest deeper issues haunting Wake Forest this season, especially since Wake is 0-2 in conference play so far.

Manning’s Deacons have a tough schedule laid out for them this month. Aside from games against Boston College on Tuesday after press time and again on Jan. 31, Wake Forest must face the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Miami, NC State, Syracuse University and Duke University — five of which went to the NCAA tournament in 2016, including UNC who almost won it all last year and Duke who did the season prior.

But Manning remained optimistic about how he and the team would prepare for this tough stretch. “We’ll continue to practice the way that we’ve been practicing,” Manning said. “We have to continue to give ourselves a chance to win ballgames. And we’ve done that every game that we’ve played.”

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January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

16

CULTURE Celebrity Dining Guide: Where the stars eat in Greensboro

by Eric Ginsburg

W

e sometimes joke in the TCB office that the Triad doesn’t have real celebrities, and with Maya Angelou’s passing a couple years ago, it’s more true than ever.

Yes, a few folks found fame after leaving, like the often-overlooked Bob McAdoo, a former NBA star named league MVP in 1975, now an assistant coach for the Miami Heat. (He’s won five NBA titles, two as a Lakers player and three as a coach.) There’s Chris Paul, 9th Wonder, and O. Henry too, but they also bounced.

There are a few true celebrities in the Triad, though I can count them on one hand; Rhiannon Giddens and Melissa Harris-Perry are the only two who come to mind, unless you count Snood inventor and Guilford College professor Dave Dobson.

That’s why I’m not calling this a Dining With the Stars Guide, because it relies on celebrities who don’t live here.

Your chances of finding anyone famous at these establishments are virtually zero. But it’s fun anyway, and it tells us something about the restaurants themselves and how our region is perceived to outsiders.

This list is incomplete, of course.

Visit the online version of this story and share your own local celebrity dining stories.

Jesse Jackson isn’t quite a native son, but he did spend his college years as an undergrad at NC A&T University. That’s where he started to make a name for himself as a civil rights activist. Naturally Jackson – who can regularly be seen at the Greatest Homecoming on Earth — has eaten at plenty of establishments in town. After I interviewed him several years ago, I tailed him and Melvin “Skip” Alston to the Summit Café, a small

Pick of the Week Secrets to Breakfast @ William G. White, Jr. Family YMCA (W-S), Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

A Brenner FIT dietitian provides information on feeding your family at breakfast. The event includes the basics of a balanced breakfast, as well as preparation and samples of balanced breakfast ideas. Registration required. More info at brennerchildrens.org.

Southern joint that’s been around since 1989 — well after Jackson’s college years in the ‘60s — and is now serving Caribbean food, too. More recently, locals spotted Jackson at Dame’s Chicken & Waffles just before the presidential election.

Speaking of, Lena Dunham popped into the Gate City as part of a campaign swing on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in 2016. She showed up at Coffeeology on Tate Street to extol the importance of voting but, according to a friend on the scene, Dunham didn’t actually eat at the coffeeshop, instead snagging food from the chain Chipotle a couple doors down instead.

If we should trust anyone’s taste on this list, it’s Rachael Ray. The celebrity chef, author and TV personality dined at Crafted: The Art of Street Food last year. The decision makes sense — it’s easily one President Barack Obama ate at Stephanie’s during a stop in Greensboro years ago. ERIC GINSBURG of the most creative and inter- The black-owned soul food restaurant offers a copious amount of delicious offerings. esting restaurants in GreensGreensboro. Normally I’d say, “Pic or it didn’t happen,” but boro. Crafted is run by Kris Fuller, who is, I should add, what this was back before we all had high-quality cameras on our most people around here consider to be a celebrity, and to be phones. Supposedly he’d been in town, and who could blame fair, she did appear on an episode of “Cutthroat Kitchen.” him for wanting one of those biscuits the size of your head? I Barack Obama might be leaving office shortly, and writers ate one a few days ago alongside the Mexican eggs (sub homehave already filed their big reflections and thinkpieces on fries for the grits) and will gladly attest to their deliciousness. the first black president’s legacy and tenure. No doubt none This one is more of a stretch, and it’s definitely the most mentioned his stop at Stephanie’s II, the venerable soul food talked about on this list (at least in my circles), but years ago restaurant in south Greensboro. There’s a picture on the wall Bruce Springsteen spent an evening at the old Rhino Club to commemorate the event. If you’ve never been, you should across from the Carolina Theatre downtown, after a conbe embarrassed. I sure gave our columnist Anthony Harrison cert at the Greensboro Coliseum. That was before the Boss hell when I learned that he, a native son, had never been. His touched off a boycott against North Carolina following the whiteness really showed on that one. passage of the discriminatory HB 2 by canceling a show at the George W. Bush and Donald Trump are very different kinds coliseum. of Republicans, but the two men have more in common than I’ve thought to myself more than once that I should be the being either side of the Obama sandwich or being known as guide for celebrities trying to figure out where to eat in the idiot quote machines. They both stopped in at Stamey’s barbeTriad — I act as an informal resource to friends with requests cue, Bush as president in 2006 and Trump as a candidate back like “Where should we get Italian dinner on a Sunday night for in September. my grandpa’s birthday?” all the time anyway in addition to You may prefer other ’cue in the area — I favor Short Sugar’s my more official capacity in these pages. I’ve even considered in Reidsville, Mr. BBQ and Little Richard’s in Winston-Salem showing up at Print Works the night of a Bryan Series lecture, and Boss Hog’s in Greensboro — but it’s hard to deny that Staoperating under the assumption that our icons are likely staymey’s fits with the populist image both men try to cultivate. ing upstairs at the Proximity.

Given Stamey’s proximity to the Greensboro Coliseum and If you’re a star or you’re responsible for booking one, hit me the state’s reputation for barbecue, it’s likely that countless up and I’ll be your guide. Otherwise I’ll see you at one of these other out-of-town celebs have ordered pulled pork here as venues, phones hopelessly at the ready to snap pictures of a well. celebrity sighting as you chow down on what’s most likely a I can’t independently verify it, but a friend in college reportplate of classic Southern fare. ed seeing LL Cool J leaving Smith Street Diner in downtown

triad-city-beat.com

Mecca is in Asheboro

News Opinion Cover Story Culture

Four Saints felt more church-like than I’d predicted, but my husband and I left certain that the pilgrimage to Asheboro was worth it.

Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

enveloping us like an embrace. Twenty or so bar paAll the other year-rounds are solid, like the Potter’s trons crooned a Christmas tune, making it feel like an Clay amber and the hefeweizen (though it ain’t got old-school beer hall. I appreciated the relative diversity nothin’ on the Hefe Vice at Small Batch in Winston-Saof the crowd: young, old, dogs, different races (though lem). Everything is surprisingly inexpensive; most half predominantly white), beards, no beards. Most were pours are $3 and full pours $5, more than making up singing the lyrics on the projector for the gas money to get here. screen, and two young women led These selections, however, Visit Four Saints Brewing the group with their voices and a are particularly worthy of the at 218 S. Fayetteville St. in guitar. It was the seventh day of pilgrimage south: the Pumpkin Christmas, they reminded us, and Belgian dubbel (which is October downtown Asheboro. Find future singalongs on the first Sunin a glass), the aforementioned it on Facebook, Twitter @ day of the month would also be imperial stout and the chardonFourSaintsBrew or Instagram nay barrel-aged Omie blonde ale. appropriate to the season. @foursaintbrewing.

The bartender graciously That’s right: beer aged in a wine obliged my request for samples cask. This particular combination before I settled on the Impending is incredible and will be an even Grace imperial stout, coming in at 10 percent ABV and better drink when warmer weather comes in. served as a $5 half pour. The brown foam reminded me Depending on where you live, Asheboro may be a of a cupcake with icing, flavor decidedly cocoa. This hike. I get it. And Four Saints can be found on draft dark brew comes in second for me this season — after throughout the region. But difficult pilgrimages are a bourbon barrel-aged imperial porter from Charlotte’s important, and the best of them leave followers undeUnknown Brewing, which I discovered at the Beer niably changed. That is certainly true for my husband Growler in Winston-Salem before Christmas. and me.

I have written before about my disappointment in Four Saints’ Genesis Belgian dubbel; I would love for Kat loves red wine, Milan Kundera, and the Shins. She them to make a Belgian tripel, which tends to have a wears scarves at katbodrie.com. twist reminiscent of wine.

Crossword

KAT BODRIE

KAT BODRIE

Sportsball

The Impending Grace imperial stout (left) and Fisher, Wainman & Winn India Pale Lager at Four Saints Brewing.

Up Front

On our way to Four Saints Brewing in downtown Asheboro on this rainy new year’s day, my husband told me, “It’s Beer & Hymns

by Kat Bodrie Night,” reading from the brewery’s Facebook page. We’d managed to avoid attending church on Christmas Eve since we aren’t believers, so all I could think in the car was, What are we getting ourselves into?

But beer is beer, and a Barstool column had to be written, so we hesitantly approached the back of the facility. Having seen images of the brewery’s omnipresent red, wax seal, and having read about their inspiration in the four saints of beer, I’d imagined a heavy oak door, one that takes some effort to open. The actual door — a lighter wood — didn’t, but what lay inside was more church-like than I’d predicted.

Since we’d entered through the back, where there was more parking than the street, we’d stumbled into the brewery itself — the silent, metallic vats like organ pipes that play in the congregation’s absence. We trod the path and opened the next door, a cloud of sound

17

January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword

CULTURE Songwriting club promotes weekly creativity and charity

by Anthony Harrison

S

ometimes, creativity must be forced by deadlines, but that doesn’t mean creativity suffers.

The Monday Morning 3 a.m. Music Club, a songwriting workshop, began three years ago after Winston-Salem-based music producer Doug Davis assembled a few songwriters as a creative exercise.

“A lot of people don’t bring the sense of discipline and craft to songwriting that I think is beneficial to those people,” Davis said in an interview.

“I wanted to create an environment where I could foster a situation in which folks were able to develop good writing habits.”

The idea behind the club is simple: Write a song in a week, based on a given theme suggested by a member via email, and turn it in by 3 a.m. on Monday morning — hence, the workshop’s name.

“We try to do something different every round,” Davis said. “Every round is about 10 or 15 weeks long. Each round has a different format, a different incentive. Every round has a different protocol; some are a little more competitive — we’ve done rounds where we’ve had outside critics come in and review the songs. Others are more free-form.”

Alphabetical order decides the songwriter who comes up with that week’s prompt. Assignments can be a general or specific as wished by that week’s arbiter.

“Sometimes, it’ll be a specific lyric or a specific phrase,” Davis said. “This past week, the assignment was to write a song that had anything to do with a New Year’s resolution of any kind.

We’ve had assignments that are more musical in nature — write a punk song, a

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Pick of the Week

18

Old Man Luedecke @ Muddy Creek Music Hall (W-S), Friday, 8 p.m.

This award-winning Canadian songwriter brings guitar and clawhammer-style banjo to the Triad. Old Man Luedecke has been nominated for the Canadian Juno Award, as well as the Canadian Folk Music Award as Solo Artist of the Year. Local artist David Petty opens.

More info at fiddleandbow.org.

Doug Davis, a music producer from Winston-Salem, founded the Monday Morning 3 a.m. Music Club three years ago. The songwriting workshop raises funds for Triad Musicians Matter, a local charity.

COURTESY PHOTO

James Bond theme, a song on a kazoo.”

Due to the slightly sensitive nature of the project, Davis has As to be expected, the songwriting process differs for each always tried to keep the club small. member.

“We keep a pretty low profile,” Davis said. “There are “Some guys, as soon as they get an assignment — Monday different things that writers will respond to, and I want to night, Tuesday night — their songs go up right away,” Davis honor that. One of the things that the guys like is that, even said. “We’ve got other guys, you know… [chuckles] a whole lot though it has a public profile, for a lot of people, it’s kind of a of songs go up after midnight Sunday night.” safe space. These guys are going way out on a limb, writing a The club publishes their songs on Bandcamp, links to which song every week; it can be a pretty daunting process for a lot are provided on the group’s Facebook page. of people.

Davis said that he’d nicked the idea somewhat from Texas “We do welcome new people,” Davis added. “We just don’t singer-songwriter Bob Schneider. have a lot of openings.”

“He’s been doing a similar project While the Monday Morning a.m. Mulike this for years and years,” Davis said. sic Club typically flies under the radar, You can find Monday Morning Davis said he wants to raise awareness “He’s had a lot of top-shelf people go 3 a.m. Music Club on Facebook for the group’s charitable angle. through that club — Ben Folds, Patti Griffith. Jason Mraz has claimed he’s “This round’s incentive is to raise the and Bandcamp. Learn more never recorded a song he did not write most money for charity, so we thought about Triad Musicians Matter in that music club. What we’re doing is we’d up the public profile for this round,” at triadmusiciansmatter.org. not exactly the same, but it’s definitely Davis said. inspired by what he’s done.”

Since the workshop’s outset, the The workshop began with about 10 club has donated funds collected from members. Roughly 20 songwriters cycle in and out, including Bandcamp downloads to Triad Musicians Matter, a non-profit Triad talents like Jerry Chapman, Renae Paige, Clay Howard, organization that raises money for local musicians in need of Patrick Rock and Steve Williard. Some of the rotating group monetary help. participants have hailed from as far as New York and ColoraThe decision to give any money gathered from downloads do. came from necessity.

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The choice of Triad Musicians Matter came naturally.

“I don’t know of any other organization that’s like that [around here] that provides that sort of help,” Davis said.

“There are a lot of charities and organizations that are doing great work, but aren’t necessarily a great fit for a group of musicians that all come from different backgrounds and all have different interests. It’s something we could all get behind and support.”

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“There’s no way that you can, across the board, disable the option for people to pay for downloads,” Davis said. “I didn’t want [money] to be a factor in this at all, but people were buying downloads, so we had a problem. We had to figure out what we were going to do with that money.

“I didn’t want to be in the business of collecting this money and paying it out,” Davis added. “It was going to get uncomfortable for everyone, so it seemed the obvious solution was to find a good charity.”

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January 4 – 10, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad

CULTURE Storytelling unpacks and unsettles holiday traditions

by Joel Sronce

J

ason Walker studied the small, motley gathering from behind the final standalone shelf at Scuppernong Books, just before the short hall leads into the large meeting room at the back of the store.

A performing poet and musician, Walker is familiar with being on stage; lured by the unexpected discovery of Triad Storytelling Exchange and its Story Slam, he quietly signed up and joined the audience.

A score of storytellers and enthusiasts had assembled on one of the chilly, final days of 2016. Much like those who tune in to the popular podcast “The Moth,” attendees had arrived to hear a true and personal fiveminute story without notes or props. Or in this case, maybe to present.

The competitive aspect of Triad Storytelling Exchange is actually pretty involved. At the outset, the evening’s emcee and exchange President Laksmi Devi explained to volunteer judges that stories should be scored from 1 to 10 based on posture, poise, eye contact, introduction and conclusion, adherence to the holiday theme and more.

As the new Bon Iver album and the cackle of a distant patron poured in from the front of Scuppernong, the storytelling began.

The tales themselves progressed with well-timed humor, apt nostalgia and seasoned gesticulation. The holiday theme tied most of the stories to tradition, though unsurprisingly the anecdotes endured through the arrival of the unexpected, a tradition disfigured.

Throughout the night, the audience encountered a growing cast of farfetched and farcical characters: a policeman father who shot a frightening bug with a handgun, the kindred devotees of a K&W Christmas and a Dalmatian who knew not only how to remove rocks from the lid of an

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Gallery Hop @ Piedmont Craftsmen (W-S), Friday, 7 p.m.

Come out to Piedmont Craftsmen for January’s First Friday Gallery Hop and see the latest exhibition of its members’ work. More info at piedmontcraftsmen.org.

First-time storyteller Jason Walker delights the audience with a dirt-bike Christmas tale.

JOEL SRONCE

old milk locker full of meat, but to put them back to delay any approach to his son’s bleeding knees and thighs. suspicion of quadruped culpability.

“You know those dirty, oily rags that all mechanics have in But it was first-timer Jason Walker who stole the show. As their cars?” Walker asked. the final presenter, he began: “On Christmas day, when I was 6 Yes, it gets worse. years old, I almost lost my life.”

“My father grabbed a pint of Crown Royal, doused the rag Walker’s father — a drag racer and ruffian — had decided to and began roughly wiping at the blood and wounds.” purchase (and physically bring into the Even now, Walker can’t comprehend apartment) a bright-red Honda 50cc that searing pain.

Triad Storytelling Exchange’s dirt bike for his son.

Around the time the wounds were next Story Slam will take place That Christmas afternoon, 15 minutes “treated,” Walker’s father had a sudden after tearing around on the bike while epiphany, thinking of the boy’s mother at Scuppernong Books on Jan. sitting in his father’s lap, the young boy back at home: “I’m gonna die, too.”

27 — its theme: close calls. Visit was allowed to ride it alone with only That night Walker remembers triadstorytellingexchange.org the inheritance of his father’s rowdy hearing the glass-shattering reaches for more info. spirit, a helmet (thank God) and some of a woman’s voice and a bounty of advice: “Don’t get on the throttle that unknown obscenities. hard.”

A month later with the bike fixed, As it tends to do, the inevitable happened. Having Walker was on it again. But this time, he was back in his accidently kicked the bike into third gear and figuratively father’s lap. losing his 6-year-old head, Walker’s next memory is coming The evening’s Cinderella candidate didn’t win — first prize to, briefly, on a boulder in a creek, the bike’s submerged back went to Charlotte Hamlin’s humorous story of her childhood wheel splattering up “water and mud and sticks and frogs and cat Wissahickon and his annual tendency to nap upon the lions and tigers and bears.” nativity scene — but Walker’s anecdote generated by far the As Walker continuously reminded the already hysterical, most laughter, awe and veterans’ encouragement to return sickened audience, it could still get worse, and it was about to. again.

Young Jason Walker passed out again, this time wakened after his father rushed him to the car and readied a mechanic’s

Across

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They may get stuck to hikers’ socks Lie adjacent to Movie millionaire sought by a samelast-named “Dude” Deadpan style of humor “Back to the Future” hero Marty “My Name Is ___” (Jason Lee sitcom) Obamacare acronym “___ of the North” (1922 silent documentary) 2020 Summer Olympics city

25 26 27 28 29 33 34 35 37 38 39 40 41 43 45 46 47 48 50 52 53 54 57 58 59 61 62

Chest muscle, slangily “Resume speed,” to a musician Be the headliner of Seasonal mall figures East, to Ernst Actor Wood of “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” Follow a jagged path Bookie’s calculations Cheese’s partner “Kinda” suffix Yoko who loved John Lennon “I’m not touching that!”

Pretend pie ingredient Opposite the mouth, in biology Party mix cereal Coffee holder “And then ...?”

Watson’s creator Head-shaking replies “You had one ___ ...”

Hiccups, e.g.

At least Actor Peter and singer Susan, for two Jokey Jimmy Cheers up Jerusalem’s home: abbr.

Syrup flavor Take the wheel A BrontÎ sister Record, in a way Get your ducks in ___ Freemium game interrupters, perhaps Curator’s canvases

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51 Newfound planet similar in mass to Earth (from National Geographic’s “6 Science Discoveries Worth Celebrating in 2016”) 54 “S” on the dinner table 55 “Inside ___ Schumer” 56 “Blueberries for ___” (Robert McCloskey kids’ book) 57 Donald Glover dramedy called “the best show of the year” by the New York Times 60 What Bertrand Piccard flew around the world using clean technology (one of BBC’s “Four good things that happened in 2016”) 63 Mascara ruiner, maybe 64 “A horse is a horse” horse 65 “SNL” producer Michaels 66 Former Montreal ballplayer 67 Cong. gathering 68 Key near the quote marks 69 Goulash, e.g.

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

Opinion

But do ask questions. If you don’t know what a machine is for or what an exercise is supposed to accomplish, ask someone. Don’t walk around, nodding your head slowly like you’re trying to figure out whether a framed slash of Crayola color counts as modern art. Most of the people at my gym — myself included — will be glad to explain what or why we’re doing something, mainly because it gives us a chance to talk about ourselves. Plus, we’ve all been there, staring open-mouthed at the dude angrily abusing the hip adductor machine and wondering what that could possibly be for.

Don’t stare open mouthed at the dude angrily abusing the hip adductor machine.

You’re at the gym to work out, so work out. Don’t stand in the squat rack for a full 15 minutes, taking selfies and debating which hashtag to use. Don’t monopolize more than half of the weight benches while you and your dad adjust your knee sleeves and talk about Cam Newton’s right shoulder. Don’t block the dumbbells while you lean toward the mirror to fluff your eyelashes or flex your triceps or both, simultaneously.

No one cares that you’ve worn full makeup to the gym, nor does anyone expect it. Not unless you’re a member of KISS. Don’t do bicep curls in the squat rack. Trust me on this. It’s annoying and unnecessary, like a spoiler on a sedan or Kellyanne Conway’s speaking voice.

And especially don’t do forearm curls in the squat rack. Dateline wouldn’t even bother investigating your murder.

Don’t come back. I’M KIDDING! I’M MOSTLY KIDDING! I’M SORT OF KIDDING! Now could I borrow two of those 10 dumbbells or what?

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er to make them, they’re things like “Work on chewing with my mouth closed” or “Spend more time weeping about my wasted potential.” I think that if you really want to change your life, you won’t wait until you peel the plastic from your David Hasselhoff-A-Day calendar; you’ll do it when you realize that you get winded when you unclog the nozzle on your spray butter, or when you pull a muscle moving the thimble from one side of the Monopoly board to the other.

If you’re still convinced that this is Your Year, the one when you get in shape — a shape other than oblong — and introduce yourself to your expectations, here are a few tips to help you through your first few weeks at the gym.

First, know your limitations. You’re probably either a beginner or you haven’t been in a weight room since Brad and Gwyneth shared a haircut… and that’s okay.

Yes, the guy beside you has six plates on the bar and arms that are bigger than your first apartment, but he’s also been coming here every day for the past decade. You might look like him someday, but there are hundreds of workouts between now and then. Today is the first one. Pace yourself.

Know that it doesn’t matter how much — or how little — you’re lifting. If you have to start with the bar, or even with a PVC pipe, do it. In your first few weeks, you should be working on form, on technique and on getting comfortable with the weight. No one will notice if you’re counting reps with the smallest dumbbells or with an empty bar. They will notice if you’re doing something stupid or unsafe or if you’re casually calling your insurance company to check what your emergency room co-pay is.

Don’t offer unsolicited advice. This goes for regulars, too: Unless someone makes eye contact with you and speaks the actual words, “Could I ask you for some advice?” don’t tell anyone what they should be doing or — even worse — that what they’re doing is ineffective. The only caveat? If you see someone attempting something dangerous or that you’ve seen in a YouTube video with the word “Fail” in the title.

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I

’m staring at my own reflection in a YMCA weight room mirror and I’ll be honest: I look miserable. Normally I love being at the gym, but today the room is packed with strangers who seem to have made new year’s resolutions to be

by Jelisa Castrodale as annoying as possible to the regulars.

There’s a guy directly in front of me, a heavily inked Travis Barker knockoff whose neck tattoos are bigger than his biceps. I just watched as he took five pairs of dumbbells from the rack and arranged them in a careful half-circle at his feet. He’s surrounded by 300 pounds of iron, but the only muscles he’ll work are the set between his eyebrows as he practices his most aggressive facial expressions in the mirror. He’s trying so hard to be menacing, but he actually looks like he’s trying to do math in his head.

In the center of the room, a father and son have stretched out on two of the three weight benches, both of them wearing so much neoprene that they look like they’ve just finished a morning shift at Sea World. They have wraps on their knees, sleeves stretching from their thin wrists to their elbows and lifting belts cinched tightly around their waists. They will leave without touching a single weight, although they will spend the next 10 minutes talking to each other about the Carolina Panthers.

I have never seen any of these people before, but I know I’m stuck staring at them for the next month, or until they lose their motivation somewhere in their own sofa cushions. It’s not that I fault anyone for trying to better themselves — especially when it comes to making healthy choices and positive lifestyle changes — but I wish that several dozen people didn’t do it at my gym, all at once. The only upside to all those shiny new gym memberships? The real and exciting possibility that I’ll see someone get hurt.

I hate new year’s resolutions, which is why, if I both-

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