2016 Issue 18 Creative Loafing Charlotte

Clclt.com | June 23 - June 29, 2016 Vol. 30, No. 18

d r 3 e  nual An

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june 25

rooftop 210 at the epicentre

presented by

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JULY 2 McGLOHON THEATER

The Wizard of Oz July 5-10 • Belk Theater

AT SPIRIT SQUARE

Sarah Jarosz July 24 • McGlohon Theater

Dixie’s Never Wear a Tube Top July 5-24 • Booth Playhouse

The Naked Magic show Aug. 4 • McGlohon Theater Newsies Aug. 9-14 • Belk Theater

If/Then July 19-24 • Belk Theater

The Okee Dokee Brothers Aug. 12 • McGlohon Theater

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Creative Loafing is Published by Womack Newspapers, Inc. Charlotte, NC 28206.

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Editorial

NEWS EDITOR • Ryan Pitkin rpitkin@clclt.com STAFF WRITER • Madeline Lemieux FILM CRITIC Matt Brunson mattonmovies@gmail.com DINING CRITIC • Tricia Childress tchildress@clclt.com THEATER CRITIC • Perry Tannenbaum perrytannenbaum@gmail.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS • Ailen Arreaza, Erin TracyBlackwood, Vivian Carol, Charles Easley, Page Leggett, Alison Leininger, Kyle Mullin, Dan Savage, Aerin Spruill, Chuck Shepherd, Jeff Hahne

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Blue caleel

18

20

Gregory Alan Iskov performs at McGlohon Theater on June 27.

cover story Behind the ink: Creating Exposure showcases tattoos and teen talent.

By anita overcash

This week’s cover photo, featuring Brandon Locklear and Dutchess Lattimore, was shot by Kevin “Surf” Mitchell.

10

News&VIEWS Who’s got next?: Gamers in Charlotte organizing events, connecting like never before.

By ryan pitkin

12 blotter 13 News of the weird 14 Thank me later

16

Food The deal on the dough: Pepperbox and Joe’s Doughs add to the doughnut frenzy.

By Madeline Lemieux

17 three-course spiel

22

Arts&Ent Roxie

gets the pippin treatment: Plus,

Manifest Pussy is touching.

By perry tannenbaum 24 film reviews

28

Music

Just do it: Sober, motivated and increasingly successful country artist Caleb Caudle goes for it.

By corbie hill 32 soundboard

18

Odds&Ends

18 Top 10 Things To Do 34 Marketplace 34 Nightlife 35 Crossword 36 Savage Love 38 Horoscope

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News

Feature

Who’s Got Next?

Gamers in Charlotte organizing events, connecting like never before

By Ryan Pitkin

M

ichael

Zytkow

is

in gaming hell…or gaming paradise, depending on how you look at it.

It’s Father’s Day and his wife and kids are at a cookout somewhere in Charlotte without him. Instead, he’s standing in the living room of his newly purchased NoDa home wading through a sea of electronics; thousands of dollars worth of PCs, modems and game consoles (old and new), along with the more than 60 controllers that go with them. He’s testing all of it, as he’s been doing for months while acquiring each piece of equipment one by one, sometimes through shady parking lot deals set up over the internet.

“I feel like when you pull off something like what we’ve been planning and there’s all this relief and celebration, that’s when you look back at all these times when it got crazy and you can laugh,” Zytkow says. “But right now I feel like I’m in it.”

What he’s in is the final planning stages for the first Potions & Pixels event, a gaming night at Petra’s in Plaza Midwood planned for June 23. Zytkow will set up about 20 TV and computer screens throughout the bar to stream indie PC video games or hook up gaming consoles that vary from Super Nintendo to Sega Dreamcast to PlayStation 4. He will also bring around 50 board games from the massive collection of more than 100 that he keeps stored in his house.

For Zytkow, who has long been known for his activist work in Charlotte — he was one of the faces of Occupy Charlotte, ran for city council in 2013 and currently works with Greenpeace — this is the real passion project.

“This is my life. It’s kind of funny because a lot of activists are shocked about it, because I kind of separate the lives a little bit,” Zytkow says. “I always wanted to be a game designer and then I switched because I decided, ‘Oh, I have to go change the world.’ I still want to go back to games and this is sort of a way back to something that’s just pure and fun. Activism sometimes has that moral 10 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

Michael Zytkow (left) and Jason Haynes hanging out at Petra’s, where they’ll launch the first Potion & Pixels event on June 23. grate to it, this is just unadulterated fun that anybody can get into.”

Potions & Pixels is the brainchild of Zytkow, who just turned 30, and longtime friend Jason Haynes, 33. The two began planning to open a game lounge and coffee shop under the same name about a year ago. The event at Petra’s will be a way to troubleshoot some of the technical aspects before committing to a brickand-mortar location.

“This lets us test it out without all that upfront capital and upfront risk,” Zytkow says. “We’re going to be walking around, helping folks out, seeing what games are popular, what kinks we need to work out, then we’re going to reform it.”

Zytkow and Haynes plan to continue holding Potions & Pixels on the second

Thursday of each month at Petra’s and hope to add more locations as things progress. The café and gaming lounge is still in the plans for the future, but they’re in no rush.

“It’s still definitely on my mind in the long term, but I think it’s going to be a while before we really develop that out into a permanent site,” Haynes says.

Haynes grew up playing video games but had let it slip away until Zytkow, a close friend of Haynes’ current girlfriend, reintroduced him to the gaming culture.

“It’s funny because I had actually fallen out of video games and board games for a while until I started hanging out with Mike,” Haynes says. “A lot of my best memories growing up involve going over to

Ryan Pitkin

a friend’s house or meeting up with a big group of people and playing old games. As I transitioned into adulthood, I had fallen out of the scene a bit. Mike has kind of pulled me back in and reminded me how cool it is to get together with big groups of people playing games together. You can meet a lot of people and have a lot of great experiences.”

That, in the end, is the goal for Potions & Pixels. Zytkow recently took a trip with Greenpeace around the country, and while he was in each city he visited events similar to the one he’ll be hosting soon in Charlotte.

The plan was already in motion at the time, but Zytkow was further motivated by the ease with which he was making friends in these cities where he didn’t know anyone.

One experience that stuck with him was in

Potions & Pixels Free admission. June 23, 7 p.m.-12 a.m. 1919 Commonwealth Ave. 704332-6608. petraspianobar.com.

Ryan Pitkin

Zach Pulliam in Abari, a bar and arcade he opened in March.

San Francisco, California, where a weekly event similar to Potions & Pixels called ShowDown averages a turnout of between 500 and 600 people.

“To me that was like, ‘Damn we have got to do this,’” he says. “It was a feeling where you sit down, you’ve never met these people before, but you have this connection.

Suddenly we’re laughing and joking with each other and I’m meeting a guy from Russia who does the special effects for Taylor Swift’s music videos and we’re wrapped up in an interesting conversation. That’s a true story.”

Not far from Zytkow’s new home is Abari, a recently opened bar and arcade that’s the first of its kind in Charlotte. It allows people to experience the above-mentioned connection through games on a nightly basis.

Abari opened on North Davidson Street in March and has been a hit with both longtime gamers and newcomers since. The bar-cade offers players about 40 retro arcade titles, 10 pinball machines and old game consoles like Sega Genesis set up in a living room-type lounge area.

Owner Zach Pulliam has watched experiences like those mentioned by Zytkow and Haynes happen in Abari since it opened, and it’s affirmed his love for the gaming industry.

One specific game, the biggest draw in Abari, has brought people together more than others. “Killer Queen” is an arcade game that hosts up to 10 players at a time, and it’s

a hidden gem here in Charlotte — one of only 12 machines in the world.

“It’s really nice to see these people connecting over gaming,” Pulliam says. “‘Killer Queen’ is one of those things where so many new people have met and formed friendships from playing that game and it’s awesome. We have guys that come in every Monday to play that game that had never met before they played that game and now they’re like best buds. To me that’s incredible.”

The game was developed by independent game designers Joshua DeBonis and Nikita Mikros and released in 2013. It involves two teams, each led by a powerful queen, trying to be the first to return a snail god to its home, fill its hive with nectar or pull off a triple assassination of the other team’s queen.

Like many independent games, the graphics in “Killer Queen” don’t look like what you might expect from a game released in recent years. While franchise games with big budgets like “Uncharted” and “Madden” continue to improve on their pristine graphics and virtual reality games begin to enter the industry, a large group of gamers are heading in the opposite direction.

These gamers prefer to collect and play retro games they grew up with or develop simple, independent games that more resemble retro platform games than anything created with a big budget and large staff.

Wilder Hemm opened Save Point Video Games in the University area in 2012. The store focuses on retro games and collectibles, and has hosted a tournament of one type or another every week since its opening.

Hemm says he’s seen prices on popular old titles double, triple and in some cases quadruple just in the four years he’s been running Save Point.

He credits that with the fact that many people who grew up playing video games in their homes are now reaching an age at which they’re financially stable and gaming carries a certain nostalgia for them.

Hemm, who donated the consoles at Abari, says he believes the nostalgia factor is also why you see gaming playing a bigger role in adult hangout spots like Abari or Hattie’s Tap & Tavern, where board games and a Nintendo 64 are always available for patrons.

“A lot of people who grew up playing that stuff are now at the age where they have

Ryan Pitkin

Zytkow (far left corner) enrolled the help of friends and friends’ kids to help him test the many titles he plans to roll out for Potions & Pixels. comfortable lifestyles; a wallet that they may be able to afford their old collection with,” Hemm says. “People who like to go out to bars in their free time, if they can hang out and play video games at the same time, people really enjoy that.”

It’s not all pixelated, retro games that make up Charlotte’s gaming culture, however. Reports surfaced in May that Team EnvyUs, one of the most successful eSports organizations in the world — known for their success in modern games like “Call of Duty,” “Gears of War” and “Halo” — is working with Charlotte-based venture capital fund SierraMaya360 to build a headquarters for the team in Charlotte.

The property would include a studio, offices, a LAN center, a training facility and an arena that will play host to large eSports tournaments and technology camps.

“I think [the arrival of Team EnvyUs] is showing you how gaming is going,” Pulliam says. “Even ESPN2 is playing eSports. It’s so much more acceptable. They’re building this compound with a theater to watch people play the games, it’s going to be insane.

I think something like that — and then Potions & Pixels — really will start opening the doors for bigger events in Charlotte.”

Perhaps the biggest boon to the gaming industry hasn’t been that gamers are growing up and making more money, but that “gamers” as a term now includes just

about anyone.

“I don’t think it’s just Charlotte, it’s the world in general,” Pulliam says. “The video game industry is a giant right now.

The reason behind that is games are more accessible, basically everyone is a gamer.

Even your grandma I bet played ‘Farmville’ or something like that. It’s no longer ‘geek.’ It’s more acceptable to love video games than it was maybe in the ’80s. It’s something that’s kind of become just part of everyday culture.”

Hoping to cater to beginners and experts alike, Zytkow and Haynes have spent months curating the list of games they’ll feature on Thursday. All but one game will be multiplayer and can quickly be learned by players at any skill level.

On Thursday, they’ll see if it’s been worth the months they’ve spent braving shady internet deals, staring at screens and testing equipment.

“I just hope a lot of people will show up, and people will engage with one another,” Haynes says. “I’d like to see little pockets of two to three people come out and they meet two to three people and then they go play games together. Then we have events where these same people come out and it’s like, ‘Hey, I remember you from the last time’ and you are kind of putting the whole social circle together.”

If one thing is for sure, Charlotte is ready for it. Now, pass the sticks. rpitkin@clclt.com

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 11

News

Blotter

By Ryan Pitkin

Lost and Found An officer filed a report

last week after a hit-and-run investigation turned into something else entirely. The officer said he saw a car that matched the description of a hit-and-run suspect parked on the curb. Although the vehicle wasn’t the one he was looking for, he did find some marijuana sitting on the dashboard. Since he couldn’t find out where the owner was, the officer reported that he simply seized the drugs as found property, leaving the owner to forever wonder who stole his stash.

Creep A 55-year-old woman decided last week that no amount of work was worth spending time with a man who made her feel uncomfortable and so she filed a police report against him. The woman told officers that the man picked her up under the pretense that she would be doing some landscaping work with him. On the way to the job site, the woman said she “became uneasy about the situation” and asked him to take her home, which he did without incident.

Rude Awakening A 66-year-old man woke up to a startling sound last weekend: that of his garage door opening. He was right to be concerned, too, as when he went downstairs to investigate he found that someone had stolen two Ford Focuses; one from the garage and one from the driveway.

Bad Trip Police and Medic responded to the Ballantyne Country Club for an overdose call last week after a 17-year-old boy called 911 and told dispatchers that he had consumed mushrooms and thought he may have eaten too many. Or at least that’s what the trees were trying to convince him.

Overtime Pay Management at a local

Jack in the Box turned in one of their employees who they say made off with a daily deposit of $636 that was supposed to go to the bank. She has nothing on another woman who worked at Harris Teeter, however. She was a longtime employee up until last week, when management found she had been embezzling money from the business for years. They estimated she took around $28,304.

Nailed It A 19-year-old man went to

police after spending the week dodging another man who had it out for him. He told police that the suspect had fired a nail gun at him several times at one point, and then two days later threatened him again and threw a water bottle at him. We’ll take the water bottle over a nail gun any day.

Getaway Driver Needed Sometimes

you just have to wait these thieves out.

Management at a car dealership on Independence Boulevard were alarmed to

12 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

find that thieves who had struck before were back for more, but this time they were going to take the whole business down with them.

Employees told police that the dealership had had several keys stolen from the shop in a previous incident, and the vehicles matching the keys were stolen shortly thereafter. The thieves returned last week and tried to make off with three more cars, but were unable to get out of the lot before one of the suspects drove into one of the roof’s support beams.

Police said the suspect damaged the vehicle he was driving, another parked vehicle, and threatened the integrity of the building. The suspects took off in the car they arrived in.

Guilty Conscience A 51-year-old

woman turned in an interesting assortment of weapons and other goods to the police last weekend after second-guessing the necessity of owning such things. According to the report, the woman handed over a shotgun, shotgun shells, a Taser, a three-ounce can of pepper spray, four box cutters, a two-foot chain, four gold chevron sergeant pins and a teddy bear dressed in army fatigues. She reportedly told officers that “she no longer needed the property because society doesn’t need it.” That’s never stopped anyone before.

Move Quicker Never bite the hand that feeds you, or drives you around for that matter. A 24-year-old woman called police to SouthPark Mall last week after she claimed the driver of the bus she was on intentionally shut the door of the bus on her arm.

Right Place Wrong Time A would-

be fraud suspect was startled when he saw police come through the door of a Rite-Aid last week as he was attempting to commit a crime in peace. Pharmacy employees told police that the suspect was attempting to have a fraudulent Oxycodone prescription filled when police responded to the same store for an unrelated call. The suspect saw the officers arriving to the store and immediately fled the scene without any pills.

Lunch Date An employee at a mechanic

shop in north Charlotte filed a police report last week after being threatened by a former co-worker. The victim said the man, who had been fired from the store on the previous day and thought the victim was to blame, called him saying that he was coming to the store to kill him, but he was going to wait until lunch to do so.

Blotter items are chosen from the files of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

News

News of the weird

By Chuck Shepherd

App Nauseam In May, the Norwegian

Consumer Council staged a live, 32-hour TV broadcast marathon — a word-forword reading of the “terms of service” for internet applications Instagram, Spotify and more than two dozen others, totaling 900 pages and 250,000 words of legal restrictions and conditions that millions of users “voluntarily” agree to when they sign up (usually via a mouse click or finger swipe). A council official called such terms “bordering on the absurd,” as consumers could not possibly understand everything they were legally binding themselves to. The reading was another example of Norway’s fascination with “slow TV” — the success of other marathons, such as coverage of a world-record attempt at knitting yarn and five 24-hour days on a salmon-fishing boat, mentioned in News of the Weird in 2013.

Government in Action (1) The

Defense Department still uses 1980s-era eight-inch floppy disks on computer systems that handle part of America’s “nuclear umbrella,” including ballistic missiles. Also, according to a May report by the Government Accountability Office, systems using 1970s-era COBOL programming language are still used for key functions of the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service, among others (including Veterans Affairs, for tracking beneficiary claims). Agencies have reported recruiting retired employees to return to fix glitches in operating systems long-since abandoned by Microsoft and others. (2) In April, police in Boise, Idaho, told KAWO Radio that they will not relax the year-old ban on dachshund “racing” that was a traditional family entertainment highlight at the annual “Arena-Wiena Extravaganza” — because all dog-racing in Idaho is illegal.

The station had argued that the law intended to target only greyhound racing; that an exception had been carved out for popular dogsled racing (reasoning: individual dogs were not racing each other); and that, in any event, the “race” course was only about 40 feet long — but reported that the authorities were “dead serious” about the ban.

Can’t Possibly Be True A watchdog agency monitoring charities revealed in May its choice for “worst” among those “helping” U.S. veterans: The National Vietnam Veterans Foundation. The organization raised more than $29 million from 2010 to 2014 — but wound up donating about 2 cents of every dollar toward actual help. The other 98 cents went to administration and fund-raising. (Similarly troubling, according to the watchdog, is that the CEO of NVVF is a staff attorney at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.)

Easily Offended (1) A March video

featured a black San Francisco State University woman angrily confronting a white student, accusing him of “cultural appropriation” because he was wearing his hair in dreadlocks. (2) A March fitness club ad pitch in Sawley, England, picturing an extraterrestrial with the caption, “And when they arrive, they’ll take the fat ones first,” was denounced by an anti-bullying organization as “offensive.” (3) A May busstop ad for a San Francisco money lender (“10 percent down. Because you’re too smart to rent”) was derided for “ooz(ing) selfcongratulatory privilege.”

Tex-ass Justice Convicted murderer

Charles Flores was on Texas’ death row for more than 16 years before the state’s highest criminal appeals court finally ruled that the execution might not be justified if the most important evidence against Flores was provided by a witness whom the police had hypnotized. The trial judge, and the jury, had accepted that “hypnosis” could lead to “recovered” memory — a popular hypothesis in the 1980s and 1990s, but largely discredited today. There was no physical evidence against Flores, and the trial court was ordered to rethink the validity of hypnosis.

Crime Scenes (1) The Massachusetts attorney general disclosed in May that state crime-lab chemist Sonja Farak — who was fired in 2013 — worked “high” on drugs “every day” in the lab in Amherst, beginning around 2005. Among her preferred refreshments: meth, ketamine, ecstasy and LSD. Farak worked at a different Massachusetts crime lab than Annie Dookhan, imprisoned in 2013 for improvising damaging lab results on at least 20,000 convicts. (2) The U.S. Justice Department revealed in April that in the 20-year period ending in 2000, most FBI forensic unit examiners overstated hair sample “matches” in criminal trial testimony — helping prosecutors 95 percent of the time.

Wait, What? (1) Robert Williams, 38,

was arrested on June 1 in Calhan, Colorado, after challenging his daughter to a duel with handguns. Williams had pointed a gun at his daughter, then demanded that she grab one, too. The daughter’s age was not reported, but police said she and Williams both got off shots (that missed). (2) Erick “Pork Chop” Cox, 32, in an angry construction-site clash in DeBary, Florida, in June, used his frontend loader to dump two heaps of dirt onto his boss, Perry Byrd, 57, burying him up to his waist before co-workers intervened. Cox said Byrd had taken the first swing and that he had only accidentally engaged the loader when trying to turn it off, but Byrd claimed that Cox was laughing during the episode.

Cox was arrested. clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 13

Views

Thank me later

The Value of The ‘Unsophisticated’ Community Tap into the world you feel the need to save from church houses, soul food kitchens and The South is a new world for grandmothers will be to our own peril. me. I prefer trains over cars, bodegas to Think deeper about what we deem chain supermarkets, and street food in acceptable as forward movement for a unmarked, unfriendly carts to food trucks, community and let us reduce our need to but I’m making my peace with sweet tea and serve as saviors to folks capable of saving neighborhoods. themselves. Let’s consider unpacking the Over the years, I’ve called more than theory of advantage, applying Malcolm one community home; recognizing in each Gladwell’s David and Goliath under the lens an ongoing erasure in communities where of disrupting the inevitable, forced life black and brown presence is equated to choices of those we fretfully steer away from. underdevelopment and underemployment.

How impressive would it be if we traded in Raised in inner-city Seattle, the adopted words for resources that developed co-working daughter of a single mother with multiple spaces on the forefront of unstable streets, storylines, my connection to progress awarding resources to Family Dollar cashiers stemmed from the visibility of packs of black in the form of a $50,000 stipend, access to women teaming together to shuffle kids off mentors and a free workspace to start their to school when someone had to work earlier own businesses — in similar fashion to what than planned. They worked together, we do for those that have the privilege sharing resources to afford school to think about their futures? We clothes and vetting positive know the dollars are there, male influences. but they’re dedicated to In spite of its challenges, discriminatory policies and I had privilege. My likability politics. mother had an important What if the case study government job, social to solve on a whiteboard capital and the frequent interview was to identify flier miles I needed to make a disruptive solution to my dreams attainable. connect my cousin Chris in My village back then South Central L.A. — who’s reminds me of the supportive sherrell littered with gang tattoos village I’ve come to know in dorsey and throws up gang signs on Charlotte. The precious staples Instagram — with an incubator that here grow out of overlooked could potentially save his life? community assets like churches, masjid’s, If our language changes, so can our beauty salons and dance studios. thinking around who has the ability to scale Today, I get to travel the world to talk and solutions for communities we find lacking in write about technology, the future of work, social sophistication. Our desire to connect impactful businesses and other jargony with people in the exact communities that we language like “disruption.” Yet it tugs at my sully with language like “disadvantaged,” “lowheartstrings to know the vast majority of income,” and “underserved” is often rooted in those living at the margins will be defeated messianic desire as opposed to a desire to put by bad policy and artificial intelligence. people on equal footing with equal ability.

Some of Charlotte’s most high-crime, highWhat if those hair salons, dance studios poverty, segregated neighborhoods suffer the and other community staples received worst from youth unemployment. Add being the investment they needed to expand brown in America to limited social capital and apprenticeship programs, scale their businesses few jobs and “innovation” in the way most and create jobs for local economic stimulation? publications write about it just isn’t applicable.

The unsophisticated community has an But the truth is, the scale of our problems informal economy that we’re looking past. It outweighs the scale of our solutions. This is carries a tremendous value that we can hack precisely where tapping the unsophisticated if we deem it worthy to join the ranks of what community mentioned above presents itself as disruption looks like today. I come from such a brilliant opportunity for those ready to push a place. And I’m here now because of it. against the status quo groupthink that runs Sherrell Dorsey is a social impact storyteller rampant in our venture capital communities. who writes on the intersection of technology, While we chase fancy incubators and sustainability, and digital inclusion for multiple accelerator programs built for the credentialed national outlets and founder of ThePLUG—the and degreed, remaining ignorant of the value definitive daily source for black tech news. of communities laced with citizens birthed 14 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 15

Food

Feature

The deal on the dough Pepperbox and Joe’s Doughs add to the doughnut frenzy By madeline lemieux

F

or Pepperbox founder Alex Beebe, loving

doughnuts was always in the genes: “My dad and my granddad always really enjoyed them, so it kind of passed down the family line.”

A self-described cook by trade, Beebe had clocked plenty of kitchen hours, but had never tried his hand at baking the family dessert of choice, until a craving called.

“I just got a recipe and started tweaking it,” he recalls. Unbeknownst to Beebe, that decision would kick-start a quest for the perfect doughnut that would occupy his kitchen for the next two years, and would ultimately make him a main-player in the Charlotte craft doughnut scene.

“For me, without any bakery experience, it was all trial and error. For a while I was coming out with these flat little discs that weren’t risen properly, or came out too dense,” he says. “I got to where I am today after two years of working at it. It all just comes with learning the dough and how it reacted, how I mixed it, how hot it was that day...taking all of those little things into account and learning how the dough was going to react.”

While it may have taken Beebe a while to perfect the formula, one thing was certain from day one: “It absolutely had to be yeast, and it had to be fried. In my opinion, those are the two components that make a good doughnut.”

The great yeast debate has long created a divide in the doughnut community; though early recipes always included the leavening agent, more recent incarnations have dropped the extra step in favor of a more dense cake-batter base, creating, as Beebe puts it, “basically just a cake in the shape of a doughnut.”

“A yeast doughnut is unique,” he explains.

“It takes a lot of time and effort, but that really comes through in the taste. There’s nothing else really like it.”

The kitchen experiments were a success, and after perfecting his formula, Beebe decided to try selling his homemade 16 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

Pepperbox doughnuts

courtesy of alex beebe

Joe’s Doughs

Joe Pepe and Jaclyn Parzygnot of Joe’s Doughs doughnuts. All he needed was a name.

“We were about to do our first popup,” he recalls. “A friend of mine did some research and came back with Pepperbox.

Apparently there’s this legend that the doughnut hole came from an old 1600s sea captain who was tired of the center of his doughnuts having uncooked dough, so he took his pepperbox pistol and punched a hole through the center.”

The name stuck, and so did the popups. Beebe’s calendar quickly filled up with weekend pop-up shops, and his menu of unique offerings grew: blackberry candy kiwi (a reigning crowd favorite), espresso glazed, and cocoa pebbles with cereal milk frosting, to name a few.

“The menu changes every week,” Beebe says, listing off some new flavors he has in the works. “I try to stay close to what’s in season. Right now, that’s something light and refreshing since it’s 190 degrees out.

Lots of fruit and berry flavors.”

Beebe hopes to bring his pop-up shops to a permanent home in the near future.

“A permanent location is the ultimate goal,” he says. “We’re pretty open to locations, so we’re looking all over. Plaza would be great, NoDa would be great, maybe west side.”

NoDa’s newly-opened Joe’s Doughs had similar beginnings. Last year, founder Joe Pepe was making doughnuts in his kitchen and carting them to pop-up shops.

This month, he opened the doors on his permanent storefront.

For Pepe, doughnuts were a hobby born out of boredom between touring the country

Madeline lemieux

with his band, Sleeplust. “I had time off between tours and I wanted a hobby,” he explains, “So my wife and I just started making doughnuts.”

When asked how he made the transition from the stage to the kitchen, Pepe laughs and credits “Google University” and “trial and error.”

“I made a lot of really bad doughnuts and eventually I just got it right,” he says.

Nailing down the right recipe might have been a challenge, but for self-proclaimed foodie Pepe, coming up with new flavors was easy work.

“I’m always trying new things, then wondering, ‘How can I turn this into a doughnut?’” he says. “The goat cheese strawberry balsamic, probably the one I’m most proud of, was actually an appetizer I had at a restaurant. It was bread with a sweet balsamic reduction with the strawberry, and I was like, ‘I can put this on a doughnut!’”

Pepe’s pop-ups were a quick success, but when it came time to tour again, it was hard to strike a comfortable balance: “I’d play until 1 a.m., then get up two hours later and make doughnuts. It just wasn’t working.”

With a demanding tour schedule on top of plans to make the move from Charlotte to Los Angeles, Pepe ultimately decided to hand over the daily doughnut operations. It was just a matter of finding the right person for the job. Enter Jaclyn Parzygnot.

“I put the word on Instagram and she was one of the people that replied. I really liked her resume and we had mutual friends,” Pepe says.

Jaclyn got to work immediately, running

Hours: Monday-Friday, 6:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m.

1721 N. Davidson St., Unit B. 704299-4418. joesdoughs.com.

Pepperbox Pop-Ups June 26, 2 p.m. Red Clay Ciderworks, 245 Clanton Road.; July 10, 2 p.m. (recurring, every second Sunday of the month). Tip Top Daily Market, 2902 The Plaza.; July 16, 2 p.m. Legion Brewing, 1906 Commonwealth Ave.

pop-up shops while Pepe began negotiations with investors who wanted to bring Joe’s Doughs to a brick-and-mortar shop in NoDa. Pepe, who now resides in California, plans to continue managing Joe’s Doughs, particularly the menu, from the West Coast.

“We all talk every day. I plan all the special events. I do all the menus with Jaclyn.

Honestly, I’m more involved now than I probably was when I lived here. I just don’t make the doughnuts because getting up at 3:30 in the morning isn’t my thing!”

The NoDa location may have only just opened its doors, but Pepe already has another project up his sleeve: commissioning Charlotte art duo Matt Moore and Matt Hooker (aka The Matts) to create a custom mural on the white-brick side of Joe’s Doughs.

“We’re giving them freedom to do whatever they want,” Pepe says. “It incorporates the whole Charlotte skyline and city, and donuts, and the lifeblood of the city.”

Doughnuts as part of the lifeblood of Charlotte? We like the sound of that.

UNLEASH YOUR INNER CHEF

Food

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three-course spiel

Lost in the Sauce Ownership at build-yourown pizza spot Zablong looks to build further

By Ryan Pitkin

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To walk into Zablong Pizza during the lunch rush is to see artistry at work.

The line can be intimidating, as it may very well fill the entire front of the small space, but it winds down fast as employees quickly build each customer’s pizza from scratch and toss it in the oven.

The Brevard Court lunch spot has served much of the Third Ward office building crowd since opening in January. Looking ahead, though, co-founder Steven Young said he wants to expand the build-yourown pizza spot into different locations throughout Charlotte.

Creative Loafing caught up with Young to chat about Zablong’s personal-pizza-only approach and how that doesn’t stop it from being the most #shareable in town.

Creative Loafing: What makes Zablong different?

Steven Young: The biggest starting point is obviously that we’re a fast pizza place that isn’t selling you slices. We’re doing one thing in one size only and it’s in a slightly nontraditional shape.

The next major thing is our sauce selection. You go to a pizza place, you expect to get a tomato sauce, maybe they’ll have some kind of white sauce, the cool places that are fancy might do a California type or barbecue, something like that. We said, ‘let’s do everything and all of it.’ We do nine sauces and sometimes more if we bring in a special. Yeah, I can do tomato sauce and we make a great pepperoni pizza, but we think, ‘let’s make a cream of spinach based thing and start from there and then do what you want.’ How does the build-your-own aspect help?

It’s a benefit in a lot of ways, but it’s also hugely important to the message that we want to send. If I go to any other pizza place, no matter how high end or whatever, if I don’t see what’s put in front of me, all I can put on the menu is a list of words people are used to.

I know what a pepperoni pizza is going to be.

We set out to be different, to do something out of that ordinary. What if you put ghost pepper salami on a menu and you couldn’t see it until it came out? I would have trouble as

Steven Young of Zablong Pizza

Ryan pitkin

Zablong Pizza Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

137 Brevard Court. 980-288-5139. zablong.com.

a customer saying, ‘What is that going to be like?’ Here we can say, ‘It’s a cool little extra bite that’s not super spicy, you want to try it?’ You can try it right in front of us.

If I came in with a traditional place that’s mass market and said, ‘We’re going to do a mushroom truffle sauce,’ people don’t know how mushroom and truffle goes, is it chunky?

Here, it’s in front of you, you can see it.

How does social media and selfexpression play into the experience?

We love it when somebody uses our builtin camera on the wall and sends us a photo.

We put in a touch screen instead of traditional TVs. We’re not about broadcasting down to you, even if it’s muted ESPN or whatever, we’re all about interaction. That was the guiding principle when we put together this concept. Every choice we made was about that. Our tabletops have a glass surface and we leave dry-erase markers on our tables so that if you’re sitting around for a minute or just want to leave a nice note, we try to take photos of the best little notes. “Wonderful pizza. Great stuff. I love Zablongs. We’ll be back.� Or if you just decided to do art.

Interaction was just the guiding light. I could sit there and send out marketing messages all day every day and that might benefit some people, they might enjoy what we have to say, but we’re really more about providing a place for you to talk about what we do, or a place to share a photo of your creation. No matter how many times I hire a photographer, I’m not going to get John’s favorite pizza. clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 17

Thursday

23

The Cure What: The Cure launched its current tour by telling fans the shows would feature 37 years of Cure songs including hits, rarities, favorites and unreleased songs, with an emphasis placed strongly over the word rarities. So far, they haven’t disappointed. They’ve performed roughly 30 songs per tour stop including multiple encores. The lineup’s changed a bit over the years, but Robert Smith is the one people will remember.

When: 7 p.m.

Where: PNC Music Pavilion, 707 Pavilion Blvd.

More: $25-$70. livenation.com.

— Jeff Hahne

18 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

thursday

23

THINGS TO DO

TOP ten

The Cure Thursday

thursday

saturday

23

saturday

25

25

The Music of David Bowie

They Fight!

Margarita Wars

What: With David Bowie’s passing in January, this tribute show has strange timing, but better late than never. Bowie’s music should be remembered, and the Charlotte Symphony along with a full band will help make that happen in the Q.C. Expect to here the good stuff — songs like “Space Oddity,” “Changes,” “Under Pressure,” and more. Vocalist Brody Dolyniuk tries the fill those big shiny shoes.

What: As a fair warning, Shakespeare Carolina has disclosed: “This show contains stage violence.” Written by Charles Homes, the show is comprised of veterans of the local theater troupe and newbies alike. It recreates some pretty stellar fight scenes from Shakespearian plays like Romeo & Juliet, MacBeth and Hamlet.

What: Full disclosure: this is a little shameless self promotion, but it’s also a hell of a party that’s well worth mentioning. Held at Rooftop 210, this margarita tasting event gives folks the chance to try concoctions (there’s a little sweet and spicy) from local restaurants — including Carrburritos, Vida, Hot Taco, La Revolucion, Bakersfield and more — and vote for the best.

Cheers!

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. More: $29.50-$69.50. 704-3721000. blumenthalarts.org.

— Anita Overcash

When: June 23, 7:30 p.m.; June 2425, 8 p.m. Through July 2.

Where: Duke Energy Theatre, 345 N. College St. More: $5-$10. 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

— Overcash

When: 1 p.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Rooftop 210, 210 E. Trade St. More: $20-$80. clclt.com/ charlotte/MargaritaWars2016.

— Overcash

Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host What: Ira Glass describes radio and dance as two art forms that “have no business being together.” This is exactly what the performance is. Put together as radio interviews acted out in dance pieces, the three-act show describes the life of being a performer, falling in love (and staying there) and loss — specifically, the concept of “nothing lasting forever.”

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. More: $20-$64.50. 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

— courtney mihocik

Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host Saturday

David Bazemore

Los Van Van Wednesday

News Arts Food Music Odds

Margarita Wars Saturday

saturday

25

Bacon Fest at the ‘Finn What: Don’t even bother inviting your vegan friends to Bacon Fest, they’ll probably be holding signs outside anyway. The event, which benefits Ace & TJ’s Grin Kids, will feature a plethora of baconinspired goods, including unique and savory appetizers, entrees, candies, chocolaty desserts and delicious bacon cocktails. Just don’t be surprised if you’re a little sick of bacon when it’s time for Sunday brunch.

When: 2 p.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Blackfinn Ameripub, 210 E. Trade St., Suite 120-B More: $15-$20. eventbrite.com.

— Ryan Pitkin

monday

tuesday

27

wednesday

29

28

Gregory Alan Iskov and The Ghost Orchestra What: Iskov calls Colorado home and it’s clear that’s where his heart is. His latest album, The Weatherman, was recorded in the mountain town of Nederland.

Full of beautiful ballads that capture aspects of nature and love, it’s an indie folk collection that’s introspective and made for listening and relaxing while appreciating life’s gifts.

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: McGlohon Theater, 345 N. College St. More: $27.50 and up. 704-3721000. blumenthalarts.org.

— Overcash

Wednesday

29

twenty one pilots

Dollar signs

Los van van

What: Twenty One Pilots is one of those eclectic duos that defies genres while winning over fans with an energetic presentation. The group’s music is at one moment hip-hop, pop-rock the next and electronic in the blink of an eye.

Since the band is paired with opening act MuteMath, it’s a onetwo punch that’s sure to make for a memorable night.

What: This is the last night of Dollar Signs’ Snug residency for the month of June and they’ve stacked the bill from top to bottom. Aside from the headliner, the Signs will be joined by Mall Goth, the synthpop husband and wife duo Sext Message (keep an eye out for lightup shoes) and Modern Moxie, who made a return at Reverb Fest and will hopefully stick around for a bit.

(They’ve been on hiatus for the last two years.)

What: Los Van Van is a popular post-revolution Cuban pop band that emerged around the ‘60s and ‘70s. In 2000, the group picked up a Latin Grammy for its album Van Van is Here (Llegó Van Van).

But the band lost leader/bassist Juan Formell back in 2014. Luckily, that hasn’t stopped the rest of its members from releasing new material that falls into the “songo” style of music that they’re known for crafting.

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre, 1000 N.C. Music Factory Blvd.

More: $35-$45. livenation.com.

When: 10 p.m.

Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: Free. 704-561-1781. snugrock. com.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. More: $25-$40. 704-942-7997. neighborhoodtheatre.com

— Hahne

— Hahne

—Overcash

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 19

Arts

cover story

Behind the Ink Creating Exposure showcases tattoos and teen talent

By Anita Overcash

“

L

ord help me not to be just a barber but an example of you.”

That phrase, dubbed as the “barber’s prayer,” is inked on the skin of local barber and stylist Brandon Locklear.

Barber’s poles, with those definitive red and white spiraling stripes, line both sides of the quote, a meaningful mantra that Locklear strives to live by. The tattoo also documents one of his life accomplishments — he got the barber’s prayer tattoo the same week he graduated from barber school back in 2009.

Locklear is one of many Charlotteans whose portraits will be featured in Inked, an exhibit of photography featuring portraits of tatted up individuals. The exhibit opens with a reception on June 29 and runs through July 8 at The Gallery South End. Teens and mentors that make up the local nonprofit organization Creating Exposure for the Arts shot the images featured in Inked. The program started back in 2010 and this is the first time its works are being exhibited. The program will continue to expand as students join and shots are added to the collection. The organization’s mission is to provide opportunities for teens and young adults to get involved with the arts through a variety of programs geared toward photography and journalism.

Mark Pendergrass, founder and executive director of Creating Exposure, has been teaching and mentoring photography and journalism students for more than a decade.

The idea for Creating Exposure began in 2001 and he worked in several similar programs and with other organizations up until its official recognition as a nonprofit in August 2015.

“We try to create opportunities to produce art, so that kids can be exposed to different skills and aspects of life,” says Pendergrass, who was introduced to photography at a young age through church and school programming in Manhattan, New York where he grew up.

He hopes that members of the organization can further develop their craft after finishing programs and they will return to mentor others. With that in mind, he also realizes that not everyone will go on to pursue a career in the arts. And that’s ok 20 | june. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

with him.

The idea is to introduce students to a new way of life. Through various ventures provided by Creating Exposure, students will be naturally exposed to influential people, places and things while learning valuable life lessons.

For Inked, one of many projects he plans to continue, he took students to shoot in studios as well as the YMCA, on street corners, at tattoo and barber shops and on college campuses. Of the latter, Pendergrass notes that through the experience some of the kids got their first introduction to a college campus.

“One of the things I tell kids is that the worst thing that can happen from picking up a camera and being involved in a program like this, is they would be the best photographer in their family. You’ll learn about photography and other things you didn’t know about.”

Some folks, like Kevin “Surf” Mitchell, have went well beyond being the designated family photographer. Mitchell ventured in and out of the program and has since made a career out of photography. In addition to attending Northwest School of the Arts, he honed his craft through experiences with Creating Exposure and now has his own photography studio in Charlotte.

Going full circle, Mitchell returns to Creating Exposure meetings to help mentor students within the organization and to guide them in the art of shooting and photography techniques.

These days, Mitchell is known for his “Couch Surfing” series, which touches on themes such as homelessness and is comprised of photographs that feature a couch with a person sleeping on it in front of historic monuments and popular destinations.

For Inked, he shot the solo shots of Locklear, as well as shots of Locklear with celebrity/model/tattoo artist Dutchess Lattimore (see the cover for a look at the pair and their ink).

Lattimore, who starred in VH1’s reality series Black Ink Crew, currently resides in Charlotte. In November of 2015, she opened her own tattoo shop Pretty-N-Ink on South Tryon Street.

Anthony Morrow

Gianna pendergrass

Jajuana Moonie

Troy Montgomery

Other celebrities featured in the exhibit include Charlotte-born Anthony Morrow, a basketball player for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

The photograph of Morrow was shot at a barber shop by Pendergrass’ daughter, Gianna Pendergrass. Now 16-years-old, she has been shooting since she was five-yearsold and thinks of members of the group as brothers and sisters.

In total, the exhibit features 15 photographs shot by 10 members of Creating Exposure during a six-year time span.

Despite appearances by several celebrities, most of the images are of everyday people.

The shots contain a diverse group of folks, who vary in ethnicity, age and occupation. Many of those featured were chosen at random by students who were on a mission to capture the one thing they all have in common: ink.

“What drew me to Inked was wanting to understand the background of the stories behind peoples tattoos,” says Mitchell, who also helped in remastering photographs in the exhibit. “You have people that have tattoos to have tattoos but some people have tattoos because an event from their life.”

Joseph Johnson, a student in Creating Exposure for a decade — he joined the program when he was 13 and he’s 23 now — was used to getting smack-talk for his rose tattoo. The flower, surrounded by a name and dates, was exposed during the summer month’s when he’d skateboard shirtless around town. While most folks assumed he was smitten and had gotten a girlfriend’s

Brandon Locklear

Kevin “surf” Mitchell

name inked onto his skin, that wasn’t the case at all. For Johnson, the tattoos serve as a memorial to his mother who died when he was just two-years-old.

“Every tattoo I have has a story. I don’t just get them to get them. And for each tattoo somebody asks me about, I give them an explanation and story behind the tattoo,” he says. “For that one, it was the story of my mother and me not knowing her but hearing stories about her through other family members.”

Although the exhibit doesn’t feature a photograph of Johnson’s tattoos, there are works that he shot and assisted in shooting with others.

Like Johnson, Locklear shares a similar family memorial on his skin — his grandmother’s name.

“When she passed away I got that tattoo because she was a big part of my life and it symbolizes her and how she was always there for me,” Locklear explains.

At the top of Locklear’s shoulders, you’ll see the words “grace” and “mercy,” two attributes that helped him years back when he was diagnosed with cancer. On his stomach, there’s a tribal eagle design that he says represents freedom and pays homage to his Native American roots.

Though Locklear isn’t a part of Creating Exposure, his experience in serving as a model and muse for the students has had a profound effect on him. “Experiencing new things can cause you to grow,” he exclaims. He goes on to cite a quote from

Jen Wilson Cowan

Inked Free admission. Opening reception on June 29, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Exhibit runs through July 8. The Gallery, 1320 South Church St. 980-299-1968.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

Hakiym Roach

For Johnson, a similar thought prevails and he shows his exuberance to continue his current endeavors with the organization.

“My biggest lesson is that I learned to give back and see an opportunity in everybody,” he says. “Mark [Pendergrass] sees the opportunity within somebody and gives them a chance to prove themself and go out and make a difference in the world. I’m more than willing to give back and to show the younger generation that there are always opportunities.”

For more information on Creating Exposure and how to get involved, visit creatingexposure. com. aovercash@clclt.com clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 21

Arts

theater

Chris record

Meredith Zahn as Roxie Hart and Justin Miller as Billy Flynn in CPCC’s Chicago.

Roxie Gets the Pippin Treatment Plus, Manifest Pussy is touching

By Perry Tannenbaum

W

hen I saw Annie at Halton Theater earlier this month, I had a theory about why the first show in CPCC Summer’s 43rd season boasted such opulent production values. Surely they had chosen to follow up with Kander and Ebb’s Chicago because this decadent vaudeville could be produced so cheaply, freeing funds for the other musicals on CP’s summer slate.

Thanks to the set and costume designs

by Robert Croghan, I could discard that theory almost as soon as I settled into my seat. The onstage band, led by musical director Drina Keen, is mostly concealed by an art deco façade with wooden frames 22 | june. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

and chrome bars. An overarching bridge that crests in the middle covers the band, with a backlit outline of Chicago’s skyline stretching up into the fly loft.

When Roxie Hart dreams of the vaudeville stardom that will come with her killer celebrity, a huge luridly lit marquee drops down from the fly loft, and when Roxie and fellow murderess Velma Kelly achieve that dream together, another fresh marquee drops down. The entire proscenium has been redone to chime in with the art deco style. Its stripes don’t seem to be electrified, but at the denouement, reflections from a row of red footlights set them aglow. The lurid footlights are the cherry on the bottom

of Gary Sivak’s outstanding lighting design.

Croghan’s costumes are even bolder.

Prison bars descend from the flies when we arrive at the Chicago jail, and Croghan doesn’t let us forget that the women inmates are celebs. The black stripes on their prison uniforms are far wider than normal, twinkling with glitter. I can’t remember any version of “Cell Block Tango,” either locally produced or in a national tour, that oozed so much sinful glamor.

The wildest wrinkle comes later when we reach Billy Flynn’s incomparably corrupt pretrial “Razzle Dazzle” peptalk. Very much like the recent Broadway revival of Pippin, the stage is transformed into a circus with

colorful costumes, a flashier onset of glitter and an outbreak of acrobatics. Much of this Pippin-effect lingers through Roxie’s travesty of a trial.

Of course, choreographer Tod Kubo and stage director Ron Chisholm are involved in this circus conspiracy, for every woman in the cellblock seems able to do a split. Both Roxie and Velma can also turn cartwheels.

Chisholm is also a splendid choreographer, so casting demands must have been precise and rigorous with Kubo’s work very much on his mind.

Aside from the inevitable orphans, the excellence of Annie under Tom Hollis’s direction mostly emanated from seasoned

Chicago $10-$22. June 23-25, 7:30 p.m.

CPCC’s Halton Theater, 1206 Elizabeth Ave. 704-330-6534. tix. cpcc.edu.

performers, Beau Stroupe as Daddy Warbucks, Susan Gundersheim as Grace Farrell, and Allison Rhinehart as Miss Hannigan. Even where Chisholm might have looked for more fully aged talents; in less athletic roles such as Amos Hart, lawyer Flynn, and corrupt prison matron Mama Morton; he opts for youth.

For the most part, we can overlook the profusion of college students and recent grads onstage at the Halton, but overall, Chicago needs a bit more swagger and arrogance than I was seeing, and the superabundance of youth is to blame. Justin Miller doesn’t always seem to grasp the full magnitude of Flynn’s slickness and hypocrisy, and as Velma, Caroline Chisholm occasionally loses the edge of the baddest broad in the cellblock and starts worrying whether she’s executing her dance routines correctly.

Both Miller and Chisholm often bring fresh juice to Billy and Velma, but it’s Meredith Zahn as Roxie who demonstrates what happens when you add swagger and arrogance to the package — or you simply inhabit Roxie’s clever wickedness every moment. Zahn isn’t the best singer or dancer on the stage, but her “Funny Honey” solo elevates the show before “Cell Block Tango” sustains that plateau. Most importantly, in the climactic courtroom scene, when Flynn becomes the ventriloquist behind Roxie’s every word on the witness stand, Zahn’s floppy antics as the lip-syncing ragdoll sitting on Billy’s lap are by far the best I’ve seen.

Stephen Stamps isn’t quite as innocuous as a true “Mister Cellophane” should be, but that number remained a uniquely quiet showstopper — and the scenes with Roxie had the right combination of intensity and cluelessness as Amos processed the fact that his wife had been screwing around with the furniture guy and expected him to take the blame for killing him. Alex Aguilar doesn’t quite have the high notes for Mary Sunshine’s bleeding heart vocal, but her unmasking is a hoot.

A little bit more nastiness and downright vulgarity wouldn’t have hurt Jessica Rebecca as Mama Morton, but she’s a very formidable stage presence. What was so jaw-droppingly good about the “Class” duet with Chisholm wasn’t how crass it was on the eighth time I’d seen it but how beautifully harmonized it is when the two sing together.

So I’ve revised my theory. The significant

anniversary that has happened on Elizabeth Avenue isn’t CPCC Summer’s 43rd. No, it’s the Halton’s tenth anniversary that has sparked the continuing turnaround, which began with the landmark production of The Phantom of the Opera last fall. Now if I had presented that show, I might have resolved, “Enough of these ‘Nice try, kid’ productions!” and maybe that’s how Hollis, CPCC’s Theatre Department chair, looked at it.

Or maybe Hollis and CPCC’s administration got on board with the idea that theatre at the Halton should always strive for the same level of excellence. Whatever is going on behind the scenes, the CPCC Summer product is more polished at the Halton than ever before, not only because the sound system problems have been exorcised but because they’re beginning to utilize the full capabilities of the stage.

If that’s the new reality, the Halton may now be the best place in Charlotte to see a live musical. Maybe CPCC will need to start selling their balcony seats again once the word gets around.

As I climbed the stairs to UpStage last Wednesday to see the Charlotte stop on Shakina Nayfack’s Manifest Pussy tour, three worries concerned me: that it would be too preachy, too raunchy and too loud. Nayfack was bringing her one-woman show to North Carolina in response to HB2, and she’d been photographed with panties down, sitting on a urinal (see cover of our June 9 issue).

The bandstand set-up for four pieces, including a guitar, a keyboard, a drum set and an electric bass, seemed to confirm my fear that I’d be rocked to uncomfortable decibel levels.

What I witnessed turned out to be two autobiographical rock musicals artfully woven together to form a narrative that reminded me a lot of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a little of The Vagina Monologues.

Instead of cooing over and affirming the glory of having a vagina as Monologues does, Pussy dwelt on worries, misgivings and anxieties Nayfack went through in getting her vagina via a complex surgery in Thailand. And unlike Hedwig, which tells about the heartaches experienced by a rock singer after a botched sex-change operation, Pussy stays focused on what it feels like to go through the procedure — also partially botched — and waking up to find a railroad of 640 stitches framing a fragile canal where your penis once was.

Bottomline, I liked Pussy better than either Vagina or Hedwig. Nayfack isn’t as cute or coy as the Vagina monologists nor as offputting as Hedwig. Some of Nayfack’s songs are jangly and metallic, but others are quite beautiful. Above all, I learned more about the inner trials that transgender people go through — physically and mentally — than I ever thought I could know. clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 23

Arts

film

Warner Bros.

Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson in Central Intelligence.

Formula Won Standard plot elevated by big laughs and big Johnson

By Matt Brunson

C

ritics often dismiss certain films (and

not unreasonably, I might add) as nothing more than “formula pictures,” bland movies that star popular actors playing stock characters being thrust into predictable situations. Every once in a while, though, one of these efforts breaks free of the shackles of complacency and 24 | june. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

conformity and is elevated from a mere “formula picture” into a “winning formula.”

Central Intelligence (*** out of four) is one such title. On paper, it looks like the same-old same-old: A buddy action-comedy in which at least one of the pair is a cop and both are forced to bond as they confront murderous villains with itchy, NRA-approved fingers (see Hot Pursuit, Bulletproof, 48 Hrs.,

and about 48,000 more).

In this one, Dwayne Johnson plays the law enforcement officer, a garrulous CIA agent operating under the name Bob Stone. As shown in flashbacks, Bob was a portly teenager and mercilessly bullied in high school, with the only person bothering to stick up for him being Calvin Joyner, the most popular kid on campus and voted

most likely to succeed. But as an adult, Calvin (Kevin Hart) is thoroughly unhappy with his lot in life, as his accounting job is unsatisfying (particularly since he’s constantly passed over for promotions) and has even led to tension with his wife Maggie (Danielle Nicolet). But once Bob hits town for the 20-year class reunion, everything changes in a flash, as Calvin now finds

himself inadvertently drawn into a massive CIA operation involving encrypted bank accounts, turncoat agents and a mysterious criminal mastermind known as the Black Badger.

As I say, formula. The spyjinks play like second-tier Mission: Impossible (though Amy Ryan is perfect as an ice-cold CIA boss), and director Rawson Marshall Thurber is no better than adequate in his staging of the action sequences. But as a comedy — and as a two-seater vehicle for a pair of highly charismatic actors — Central Intelligence is hard to resist.

As I’ve stated in past reviews for movies like The Wedding Ringer and Ride Along, Hart is always better than his material, but not this time. Even though he’s theoretically playing the piece’s straight man, he’s still given plenty of opportunities to show off his wired brand of comedy, especially when reacting to Bob’s very particular set of skills.

He also enjoys an easy rapport with Johnson, who clearly is the star of the show.

The artist formerly known as The Rock has long since proven that he has more natural acting chops than any other former muscleman-turned-thespian (sorry, Arnie), and he’s probably only going to get better.

Already having flashed his comic chops in such pictures as Pain & Gain and Be Cool, he’s absolutely riotous as a perpetually cheerful guy who is fond of unicorns and cites Sixteen Candles as his all-time favorite film (he always related to the Molly Ringwald character). He’s the central reason why Central Intelligence works as well as it does.

Of the first 10 animated features to come out the Pixar gate, only one was a sequel. But out of the last seven, four have been sequels, and of the four films announced for future release, three of them will be sequels. In other words, welcome to the studio’s cash-grab years.

Of course, two of the follow-ups turned out to be instant classics (specifically, the Toy Story titles), and with last summer’s superb Inside Out, the Disney-owned outfit demonstrated that it can still produce wholly original movies worthy of the Pixar brand.

Unfortunately, efforts like Finding Dory (**1/2 out of four), while perfectly pleasant, do little to quell the feeling that a certain measure of rubber-stamp efficiency has gripped the studio.

A sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo, this one focuses on the blue tang fish (voiced

by Ellen DeGeneres) who has suffered from short-term memory loss her entire life. Now recalling bits and pieces of her childhood and the close bond she enjoyed with her parents, she elects to cross the ocean in order to locate them, with the reluctant clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his eager son Nemo

(Hayden Rolence) joining her in her seafaring search.

As with Finding Nemo, the animation employed to capture the look of life under the sea is absolutely staggering, even if it no longer registers as the revolutionary feat it was 13 years ago.

But Dory’s odyssey is never as involving (though certainly more repetitive) as Nemo’s, and while Dory, Nemo and especially Marlin are still fairly engaging protagonists, they’ve been surrounded by a supporting cast revealed to be one of the dullest yet conceived by the Pixar braintrust. Aside from a trio of sea lions (the speaking ones voiced by Idris Elba and Dominic West) and a grouchy octopus (Ed O’Neill), there’s very little color to these creations, and it’s unlikely the studio will be mounting spin-offs centered on such stiffs as a near-sighted whale shark (Kaitlin Olson), a bellyaching beluga whale (Ty Burrell) or a boisterous eagle ray (Bob Peterson).

While select scenes dawdle, others provide a clever kick, such as Marlin’s encounters with a gooney bird. Of course, children will lap up the entire endeavor like ice cream, and while adults should also find enough of interest to make it worthwhile, I imagine many will still prefer the variation of this plot when it was R-rated and called Memento.

An underdog tale about an overachieving equine, Dark Horse (*** out of four) centers on a magnificent animal named Dream Alliance and his triumphs and travails both on and off the racetrack.

Yet even though this horse is the marquee draw, the movie is as much about the humans backing him all the way.

In a small Welsh town, a group of workingclass citizens led by bartender Jan Vokes elects to pool its meager financial resources and purchase a mare for the purpose of breeding a racehorse. As various subjects note, only the rich can afford to race horses, so when these ragtag folks show up with every intention of entering their decidedly non-thoroughbred (the product of their initial investment) in equestrian events, the whole affair has a Caddyshack-esque “snobs against the slobs” vibe to it.

And as if ripped from the pages of a fictional feature like Caddyshack or The Bad News Bears or any other sports saga where the little guy (or, in this case, little foal) comes out on top, this documentary takes some unexpected turns that keep the saga percolating.

It’s a cinch to be made into a Hollywood yarn, with Helen Mirren cast as Jan and Brendan Gleeson tapped to play her husband Brian. And for the pivotal role of Dream Alliance? I predict Oscar #4 for Daniel DayLewis.

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 25

Arts

Happenings

Comedy Bonkerz Comedy Club Charlotte Steve Mingolla w/ Jeremy McLellan. June 2425. 5624 Westpark Drive. 980-288-5653. bonkerzcomedyproductions.com.

The Comedy Zone Charlotte Bob Saget. June 24, 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.; June 25, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Freestyle Funny Comedy Show. June 26, 7 p.m. Clap It Up. June 28, 8 p.m. Almost Famous Comedy Show. June 29, 8 p.m.; 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd., Suite B3. 980-3214702. cltcomedyzone.com.

Wet Willie’s Charlotte Comedy Theater. Improv performance by Charlotte Comedy Theater. For more information, visit charlottecomedytheater. com. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. $10. 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd., Suite C-1.

Theater/Dance/ Performance Art Aladdin Jr. Presented by CPCC Summer Theatre. June 29-July 9, 10 a.m. 1206 Elizabeth Ave. http://tix.cpcc.edu.

Charlotte Squawks: 12 Angry Hens Charlotte Squawks is described as Saturday Night Live meets Broadway meets the Queen City. June 23, 7:30 p.m.; June 24-25, 8 p.m.; June 26, 3 p.m. Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St. 704372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

Chicago CPCC Summer theatre presents Chicago. June 23-25, 7:30 p.m. CPCC’s Halton Theater, 1206 Elizabeth Ave. http://tix.cpcc.edu.

Forever 4 What? Brought to you by the production team and writer behind last year’s hit play, Blood Ties, Forever 4 What? is a gripping story about unconditional love, marriage, infidelity, and whether or not happily ever after really exists. June 24, 7 p.m.; June 25, 6:30 p.m. Stage Door Theater, Corner of 5th Street and N. College Street. 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

Maks & Val Featuring stars from ABC’s hit show Dancing with the Stars. June 26. Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd. 704372-3600. ovensauditorium.com.

Oklahoma A love story about a cowboy named Curly and a farm girl named Laurey in the wild, wild West. $12-$18. June 24-25, 8 p.m.; June 26, 26 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

2 p.m. Matthews Playhouse, 100 McDowell St. 704-846-8343. matthewsplayhouse.com.

Singin’ in the Rain Adapted from one of the greatest movie musicals of all time. A starlet, a leading man, and a love affair that will surely keep you entertained. $15-$29. June 23-25, 8 p.m.; June 26, 2 p.m. Davidson College’s Duke Family Performance Hall, 207 Faculty Drive, Davidson. davidsoncommunityplayers.org.

Stage Kiss Two actors with a history are given leading roles in a romantic play. Things get weird when their lives start to follow the lives of the characters in the play. June 23, 7:30 p.m.; June 24-25, 8 p.m. Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, 650 E. Stonewall St. 704-342-2251. actorstheatrecharlotte.org.

Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host A fun and unlikely combination of dance and radio. Featuring Monica Bill Barnes and Company, Ira Glass, and Anna Bass. $20. June 25, 8 p.m. Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. 704372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

We Are Not These Hands This play explores the effects of rampant capitalism on a country that is ill-prepared for it. June 24-25, 8 p.m. Studio 1212, 1212 E. 10th St.

More Events 3rd Annual Bikes, Brews and BBQ Oskar Blues and The String Bean team up to help the Belmont Community Orginization provide bikes for kids this summer. Live music by Sinner & Saints and The Menders. Bouncy house for the kids. June 25, 11 a.m. The String Bean, 106 N. Main St., Belmont.

Charity Dog Wash Featuring vendors, live music, food, raffle prizes, and more. $15 dog baths available. Proceeds raised will be donated to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) K9 Unit. June 25, noon-4 p.m. Dogtopia, 616 Springbrook Road. dogdaycareofcharlotte.com.

Charlotte Hounds vs. Atlanta Blaze June 23, 7:30 p.m. American Legion Memorial Stadium, 310 N. Kings Drive.

Charlotte Knights vs. Durham Bulls June 2729, 7:05 p.m. BB&T Ballpark, 324 South Mint St. milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t494.

Summer Solstice Celebration Featuring fire art performers, music from DJ Skinner and Kaizen

and a specialty beer and cocktail bar pop-up.

June 25, 7 p.m. Haylo Healing Arts Lounge, 1111 Central Ave., Suite 100.

Queen City Summer Fest Featuring free food, lawn games, giveaways, live music, Hot Sauce Band, local non-profits, a 50/50 raffle and silent auction. June 24. Rooftop 210, 210 E. Trade St., Suite 230B. Discover Another Culture: Germany Enrich your cultural understanding by learning about the culture of Germany through the experiences of a speaker of native origin.

June 25. Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library (University location), 301 East W.T. Harris Blvd.

How Does Your Garden Grow? In this class, attendees will create a flower painting in acrylic. June 28. Ciel Gallery: A Fine Art Collective, 128 E. Park Ave., Suite C. 980-2022435. cielcharlotte.com.

Teas of the British Isles: Legends and Mysteries of England The Charlotte Museum of History is hosting a series of afternoon teas accompanied by lectures that explore the history of the British Isles. June 26. Charlotte Museum of History, 3500 Shamrock Drive. 704568-1774. charlottemuseum.org.

Wellness from Within: A Wom(b)men’s Retreat Join Nicole Brantley and Kelley Carboni-Woods for a mini retreat to look at ways to support health through food, lifestyle and movement. June 26. Advent Coworking, 933 Louise Ave. adventcoworking.com.

Mirror Moves: ‘80s & ‘90s Alternative Dance Party Featuring ‘80s and ‘90s music. June 24, 9 p.m. Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. 704332-6608. petrasbar.com.

Purgatory 70: Rise of the Villians Single Cell Productions presents this BDSM party with performances by Purgatory All-Stars and more. $12-$15. June 25, 8 p.m. Amos’ Southend, 1423 S. Tryon St. 704-377-6874. amossouthend.com.

Su Casa Nightlife event with music (house to Afrobeat and more) from DJs, face painting, art and more. June 25, 10 p.m. Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. 704-332-6608. petrasbar. com.

Midnight Bootlegger 5K Take on your favorite trails by the light of the moon (and a headlamp). After making it through the challenging twists and turns and passing the

finish line there will be cocktails made from handcrafted moonshine and a bluegrass concert. June 25, 6 p.m. Anne Springs Close Greenway, 1604 US-21, Fort Mill.

Tiny Homes Expo Featuring all things related to tiny home living and communities. There will be tiny homes and vendors showing all their products and the opportunity for the community to tour each home. June 24–26.

Cabarrus Arena and Events Center, Highway 49 S., Concord. tinyhomesexpo.com.

Murphy’s Dirty 30 Habitat Mud Volleyball Volley ball tournament in the mud. June 26, 1 p.m. Bryton Development, Savoy Lane, Huntersville.

South End Beer Dash Test your endurance with four, 12 oz. beers in just four laps (one mile).

After party at Slate Billiards. There will be flip cup, beer pong, live music, award ceremony and other activities. $24.19-$69.88. June 25, 8:30 a.m. Slate Billiards, 200 E Bland St. Microbrew Cruise Microbrews Cruise begins with a guided group flatwater paddle along the Catawba River. As the sun starts to set on the river, the group returns to the shore for a chef-prepared, fireside dinner with craft beer. $55 a person. June 24; June 29. U.S. National Whitewater Center, 5000 Whitewater Center Parkway. 704-391-3900. usnwc.org.

Margarita Wars Watch Charlotte’s finest bartenders battle it out to concoct the best margarita in the city — and you get to be the judge by sampling up to 15 margaritas and voting for the best. June 25, 1 p.m. Rooftop 210, 210 E. Trade St., Suite 230B. clclt.com.

NexGen Mint: Design Lab - Pumped Participants (14-18 years old) can explore Pumped themes in the exhibition and can create their own fashion works in this shoe workshop. June 25. Mint Museum Uptown, 500 S. Tryon St. 704-337-2000. mintmuseum.org.

Matthews Summer Movie Series Screening The Box Trolls. Movie begins at 8:30 p.m. June 27.

Stumptown Park, 207 West John St., Matthews.

Shark Week Movie: Jaws Celebrate Shark Week at Steele Creek Library with Jaws trivia followed by a viewing of the original AcademyAward-winning flick. June 29. Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (Steele Creek Branch), 13620 Steele Creek Road.

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 27

Feature

Music

John Thatcher

Caleb Caudle performs at The Evening Muse on June 25.

Just Do It Sober, motivated and increasingly successful country artist Caleb Caudle goes for it.

By Corbie Hill

w

hen Caleb Caudle

picks up the phone, he sounds really down-and-out, so much so that I blow past my first interview question and simply ask if he’s OK. He is, he says, it’s just that he’s been driving nonstop. He woke up in Hollywood 28 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

two days ago. Last night, he was in New Mexico. Today, he’s been up since 4 a.m., and he’s just crossed into Tennessee on a beeline back to North Carolina. The man is in the midst of driving across the U.S. about as fast as you can.

“For me, there is no thought: If I start

thinking about it too hard, I get bummed out about it, so I just go for it,” Caudle says, resigned to the many miles that still stand between him and his Winston-Salem home.

“Don’t fall asleep, I guess.”

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m pestering him and that I’m just another

interviewer calling to dredge up his year in New Orleans or overanalyze his three years of sobriety. After all, Caudle has seen consistent press — love from Rolling Stone in particular — since the February release of Carolina Ghost, his seventh and most visible album to date. It’s a straightforward country

Caleb Caudle $8-$10. June 25, 8 p.m. Evening Muse, 3227 N. Davidson St. 704-3763737. eveningmuse.com.

record, calming in its mid-tempo directness and hearkening to stylistic forebears like Alan Jackson as well as contemporaries like Jason Isbell. It’s country music, naked of Nashville glitz and immediately accessible.

Caudle writes emotionally substantial music, but also possesses the hustle to tour behind it 150 days a year. To drive any distance simply because he must or to successfully go cold turkey off alcohol; to do any of this takes substantial willpower.

“There’s no real preparation for some of the things you have to do other than knowing you’ve done it before,” Caudle says.

“You just do it.”

In going sober, he’s seen the benefits of self-actualization already. Caudle cites Todd Snider, currently of supergroup Hard Working Americans, who says he quit drinking for the same reason he started in the first place: it makes him feel better.

It’s rare these days that someone tries to buy him a drink, Caudle says. It’s been a few years and word has gotten around that the man onstage is through with that.

He doesn’t miss it. In particular, he doesn’t miss the weeks and weeks of hungover drives that used to define touring.

“People want to come to your show and have a party and they expect you to be this drunk character onstage, but then they go home and they sleep in their bed,” Caudle says. “They don’t have to wake up and drive six hours the next morning and do it over again.”

“Americana is an extremely sober genre,” Charles Aaron wrote in one of the most indepth Caudle profiles to date, published in Bitter Southerner. Many of its musicians have moved on from drugs or heavy drinking.

In singing about it, or perhaps in writing with post-booze clarity, they create some of their strongest material. Raleigh’s American Aquarium, for example, released 2015’s Wolves after bandleader BJ Barham put down the bottle. It is likely the band’s finest album.

These days, Caudle takes a level, sober look at himself and where he fits in the world, accepting the bad and celebrating the good. The video for Carolina Ghost’s title track is a tender homage to his parents’ love for each other.

So Caudle is exhausted nut clear-headed as he drives cross-country today. He’s heading home to Winston-Salem, where he was raised and today lives with his fiancée.

As a non-drinker, he interacts with the city differently now: he has his favorite brunch spot, for example, but is a homebody at night.

“I get enough of my going out or whatever you want to call it while I’m on tour,” he says.

His hometown feels sleepier now, sure, but it fits his focus on his wife-to-be and he sounds quite pleased. Come home, be home. He’s busy enough anyway with his tour schedule, not to mention the additional hustle of recording.

“Unless you’re on a huge label, they’re not paying to make records anymore,” Caudle explains. To do Carolina Ghost and get it right, he raised just over $15,000 via Indiegogo. The musicians he wanted, after all, had to be flown in from out of state for the sessions — and then they had to get paid. Caudle doesn’t love the crowdsourcing approach — little surprise, considering how reserved he seems over the phone — but it made the record possible and he’s satisfied with the results. Besides, he may have to do it again.

“I won’t close the door on it, but I would love to get into a situation where me and my fiancée weren’t labeling 300 different packages in the same night,” he chuckles.

There are no Indiegogo incentives to box up and mail out after he crosses Tennessee and makes it home to Winston this time, though. Just a few days home and then a smattering of shows in North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Georgia. Nothing too far afield, really, at least not for a singer whose audiences now sing along, even on the West Coast.

“I don’t think that situation would have happened a year ago. I’m thankful that it’s happening now,” Caudle says. “The work doesn’t ever get easier, it just changes. It’s a lot of live and learn.”

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 29

The 3rd Annua

l

SATURDAY JUNE 25th

a t i r a g r a M rs

presented by

Wa

Join us on June 25 as Charlotte’s finest bartenders battle it out to concoct the best margarita in the city - and YOU get to be the judge. Sample over a dozen margaritas as we kick off summer 2016 the right way. The drinks will be cool and the music will be hot!

SAMPLE MARGARITAS FROM

SPONSORS

Rooftop 210

at the epicentre

Ticketswww.clclt.com on Sale Now!

30 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 31

Music

Soundboard

JUNE 23 Blues/Roots/International A Tribute to John Prine (Evening Muse)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth Nita B Jazz Trio (Veterans Park, Kannapolis)

Country/Folk Andy Hall (Tin Roof) *Gaelic Storm (Neighborhood Theatre) Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder (McGlohon Theater) Cranford Hollow (U.S. National Whitewater Center)

Pop/Rock Satisfaction, a Rolling Stones Tribute (Rooftop 210) *The Cure w/ The Twilight Sad (PNC Music Pavilion) Donnie Dover (Comet Grill) *The Music of David Bowie Experience (Belk Theater) Shiprocked (Snug Harbor)

JUNE 24 Blues/Roots/International Tinsley Ellis (Double Door Inn)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth Gary Lowder & Smokin Hot (Downtown Gastonia) Leslie & Friends (Stonecrest Shopping Center) Straight-Ahead Jazz Fridays (BluNotes)

Country/Folk Bonnie Bishop (Evening Muse) Brantley Gilbert w/ Justin Moore, Colt Ford (PNC Music Pavilion) Kalie Shorr (Tin Roof) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill) Mickey Gilley (Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby) Out Of The Blue (Coyote Joe’s) Gal Friday Band (Belle Johnston Park, Pineville)

Hip-Hop/Soul/R&B

32 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

Culturalist, Written in Gray, Arborlea, Azymyth, Baasthyrian, Deuteronomy Anno Domini, & Den Of Wolves (Amos’ Southend) Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill Matt Stratford Duo (RiRa Irish Pub) *Permanent Vacation (Snug Harbor) Totally Slow w/ Late Bloomer, Nerve Endings, From the Gun, 1970s Film Stock (Milestone)

JUNE 25 Blues/Roots/International Of Good Nature w/ Treehouse (Visulite Theatre)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth *Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Free Concert (Bailey Road Park, Cornelius) Bonejazz (Stonecrest Shopping Center)

Country/Folk Blue Dogs (Double Door Inn) Carolina Gator Gumbo (Comet Grill) Derik Hultquist (Evening Muse) Kaleb Hensley (Tin Roof)

Hip-Hop/Soul/R&B Dominant 7 w/ Mr. Invisible, Potters Field, N’Dangr Species, Sham Grammar, DJ Notik (Milestone)

Pop/Rock *Caleb Caudle w/ Caroline Spence (The Evening Muse) *Jay Farrar (Neighborhood Theatre) Modern Primitives w/ Shadowgraphs, It’s Snakes, Grand Republic (Snug Harbor) The Floorboards (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Rock Machine (Sylvia Theater, York) Scar Tissue (RiRa Irish Pub) Slippery When Wet (The Fillmore Charlotte)

JUNE 26 Classical/Jazz/Smooth Summer Pops: “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” (Symphony Park at SouthPark Mall)

Viva La Hop w/ Bubonik Funk (Visulite Theatre)

DJ/Electronic

Pop/Rock

Pop/Rock

Carolina Unsigned Music Showcase w/ Krvsade, A Young Man’s Burial, The

Max Pain & the Groovies w/ Secret Guest (Snug Harbor)

DJ A-ROD (Tin Roof)

Omari and the Hellraisers (Comet Grill) Sense of Purpose f. Paul Agee, Chris Allen, Joe Lindsay, Jody Gholson (Tyber Creek Pub) Take the Fall w/ The Funeral Portrait, The Ivory, Bear Light Symphony, Tough Luck (Milestone)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth

JUNE 27

Out Of The Blue (Coyote Joe’s)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth The Monday Night Allstars (Double Door Inn)

Country/Folk *Gregory Alan Isakov and the Ghost Orchestra w/ Jay Clifford (McGlohon Theater) Hunter’s Travesty (Comet Grill)

Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Belle Johnston Park, Pineville)

Country/Folk Open Mic (Comet Grill)

Pop/Rock The Alex Guthrie Band w/ Caroline Keller Band R J Bracchitta (Evening Muse) *Barenaked Ladies w/ Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Howard Jones (CMCU Amphitheatre) Dollar Signs w/ Modern Moxie, Mall Goth, Sext

Hip-Hop/Soul/R&B

Message (Snug Harbor)

Knocturnal (Snug Harbor) #MFGD Open Mic (Apostrophe Lounge)

Jesus Culture (Ovens Auditorium)

Pop/Rock Open Mic Night w/ Nick Wells (Evening Muse) Wicked Powers (Comet Grill)

JUNE 28 Blues/Roots/International Gondwana w/ Jalistic (Visulite Theatre)

Classical/Jazz/Smooth Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Double Door Inn)

Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor) Paralysis w/ Old Scratch, Black Fleet (Milestone) SummerDaze (Romare Bearden Park)

COMING Soon Aesop Rock (July 1; Visulite Theatre) Vans Warped Tour (July 5; PNC Music Pavilion) 5 Seconds of Summer (July 18; PNC Music Pavilion) Lindsey Stirling (July 19; Ovens Auditorium)

Country/Folk Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill) Tuesday Night Jam w/ The Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

Hip-Hop/Soul/R&B

Garbage (July 23; The Fillmore) Gwen Stefani (July 23; PNC Music Pavilion) Sarah Jarosz (July 24; McGlohon Theater) Snoop Dogg (July 24; PNC Music Pavilion) Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Of Mice & Men

*Black Milk w/ StereoLoud (Snug Harbor)

(Aug. 2; PNC Music Pavilion)

Pop/Rock

Motion City Soundtrack (Aug 10; The Fillmore)

Bush, Chevelle (Aug. 9; CMCU Amphitheatre)

Fairplay & Special Guests (Lucky Lou’s Tavern) Farewell Albatross w/Community Center, Frank and his Alter Egos, Charles Walker (Milestone) Jon Linker Band (Tin Roof)

Keith Urban (Aug. 18; PNC Music Pavilion)

*Twenty One Pilots (CMCU Amphitheatre)

* - CL Recommends

JUNE 29 Blues/Roots/International *Los Van Van (Neighborhood Theatre)

Goo Goo Dolls (Aug. 28; CMCU Amphitheatre) Brian Wilson (Sept. 19; Belk Theater) Puff Daddy (Sept. 20; Time Warner Cable Arena)

Need directions? Check out our website at clclt.

com. CL online provides addresses, maps and directions from your location. Send us your concert listings: E-mail us at aovercash@clclt. com or fax it to 704-522-8088. We need the date, venue, band name and contact name and number. The deadline is each Wednesday, one week before publication. clclt.com | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | 33

Ends

Marketplace

JOBS | POSTINGS | LISTINGS | RENTALS

Ends

Nightlife

Drinks on the boss are the best Happy hour success in Uptown

PHOTOGRAPHY Family Engagement Real Estate Events and more

www.JeffHahnePhotography.com

704-737-2145

The Perfect Combo.

34 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

Recycle me, please (Only after you’re done reading me)

The very next day, the sales manager called The best thing about working for me back to confirm my reservation. Talk a company that is primarily composed of about fancy! She was very professional and twentysomethings is that grabbing drinks patient despite my inexperience coordinating after work is not only acceptable, but a something quite like this. She explained our regular occurrence. options and sent over a contract.

It’s definitely something we look forward When the clock struck 5 o’clock on hump to as the work day comes to a close. Not to day, we had our very own private room mention, team happy hours on the company card are always a celebrated after work (secured without a rental fee from 5 p.m.activity that adds to employee morale.

8 p.m. and a commitment to a $350 tab (Disclaimer: “Happy hour” is traditionally minimum — not too shabby). referred to as a period of time in which a Tucked in the back right corner of the public venue offers discounts on alcohol and upscale restaurant, I crossed my fingers that food items. In North Carolina, however, everything would go down without a public venue can’t offer discounts a hitch, especially since I didn’t on alcohol from say, 4 p.m.check out the room before 6 p.m. Any specials that NC hand. bars and restaurants offer I breathed a sigh of relief have to go all day long. when I entered the room So when I say “happy and was welcomed by hour” below, I’m simply an intimate atmosphere referring to “after work sprinkled with cocktail drinks.”) tables, the perfect Last week, my boss environment for sharing asked if I would find laughs over a few drinks somewhere for our team to with co-workers.

Aerin Spruill go for happy hour.

A few minutes later, our While I love exploring the team members were rolling in latest venues in the Queen City, and waiting as patiently as possible I’m still learning how to apply my for our first drinks of the night. nightlife skills to diverse crowds, so I get a I glanced at the featured cocktails on the tad nervous when anyone asks for my advice happy hour menu and decided on one with on where they should go. And I was extra tequila — in spite of our rough history — nervous when I found out I was coordinating and orange juice. happy hour for almost 30 people.

Surprisingly, it was refreshing and not My first thought was, “Where’s the most heavily tainted with the robust flavor that I convenient venue we can go that will be large was familiar with when I’d had tequila shots enough to accommodate a large crowd and in the past. also offer decent drink specials?” Now that Before you knew it, most of us were our office is located Uptown, the possibilities two drinks in, shaking off the work day and were seemingly endless, but as I went down letting go of the awkward discomfort that the list of familiar spots, my options started comes with chatting with new faces. wearing thin.

Even though we didn’t fold an appetizer After all, who wants to have a semibuffet into our contract, the staff was more professional happy hour in the same place than happy to accommodate the hungry they were making out in, or arguing with tummies that convinced our boss to add a bartender just a few short days ago? few food trays to the mix. Calamari, baconI decided to play it safe and suggested wrapped shrimp and quesadillas — talk we go to McCormick & Schmick’s, which was about mouth-wateringly delicious! only a two-floor elevator ride away.

Needless to say, happy hour for our They offer a wide variety of cocktails, teams was a humpday success. And my team, wine and beer specials all day long, as well as the real “original gangsters,” shut the shindig a few discounted food options from 4 p.m.-7 down as we were the last to walk out the p.m. starting at $3. (Note: food specials are door. only available at the bar and on the patio).

On Wednesdays, it can get really crowded What are some of your favorite happy hour at McCormick’s because they also offer $1 spots in the Q.C. and what do you like best shrimp and oysters. about those spots?

I decided to call and make a reservation. backtalk@clclt.com

Ends

Crossword

CELEBRITIES OF THE PAST ACROSS

1 Young lady 5 Assist illicitly 9 Major work 13 With 107-Across, discontinued gradually 19 Radio host Don 20 Storied Ali 21 Singer Coolidge 22 Sharp cheese 23 Gave a shot to a James Bond actor?

26 Versace competitor 27 Additionally 28 Skiff mover 29 Teased a classical/pop singer?

31 Took the “Alphabet Series” novelist to court?

35 Yes, to Fifi 36 Steel city of Germany 37 Masters 38 Stole from a “West Wing” co-star?

45 Aromatic oily resin 47 Conger hunter 48 Man -- (old racehorse) 49 Growl at, e.g.

52 Sent an invoice to a Fox News Channel host?

56 Love, in Leon 57 Is no longer 60 Sunbeams 61 Delivery docs 62 Tattooed Tom Sawyer’s creator?

65 “-- see it my way” 68 Prefix with fire or print 71 Wee 72 “Mighty” trees 73 Dwarf planet beyond Pluto 74 Certain lyric poet 76 Bullring holler 77 “-- know it!”

79 Honored the wife of Rainier III with one’s presence?

81 Garage fluid 82 Flag down 84 Meyers of “Dutch” 85 Blood group?

86 Devoured a CNN reporter?

92 Lounge chair 94 Baby buggy 95 Ton of, informally 96 Keynote giver, e.g.

99 Prepared a boxing cham-

pion for an on-air interview?

102 “Quit that!”

103 Fun party 107 See 13-Across 108 Slightly cut the star of “Affliction”?

110 Gently moved a “Pillow Talk” co-star back and forth?

117 Lav, in Britain 118 Real-estate unit 119 Melodic, to a composer 120 Hurried a radio talk show host?

124 Altering ace 125 Opponent 126 Actor Gyllenhaal 127 Soft white cheese 128 Sneaks 129 For fear that 130 Went quickly 131 Fortuneteller

DOWN

1 Enzyme in fat breakdown 2 It beats a B 3 Boot leathers 4 Old Russ. state 5 Cross as -6 Unjust verdicts 7 Wane 8 La Brea goo 9 Film director Welles 10 Spare parts?

11 Provo setting 12 Of right mind 13 Czech capital 14 Appalling 15 Spitballs, e.g.

16 Swedish auto 17 Sicilian city 18 Totally ruin 24 Fine brandy 25 Spanish for “eyes” 30 Acoustic guitar type 32 Leaves a ship 33 Monkly title 34 Sepulcher 38 Hinge (on) 39 Faux fat 40 Napping site 41 Clark’s gal 42 Avian hooter 43 -- -Mart 44 Suffix with green or fish 46 Salacious 47 Flair

49 Rumba’s kin 50 PC notes 51 One of four direcciones 53 Eye piece?

54 Spoil 55 Download for a Nook 58 Zillions 59 Whack 63 Singer Gorme 64 Japan’s emperor 66 Costa -67 Belgian river 68 Metric “thousandth” 69 Dots in the sea, to Juan 70 Songwriter Jule 73 Novelist -- Stanley Gardner 75 Yvonne who played Lily Munster 78 Ancient 79 Home of the Great Sphinx 80 Wds. are defined in it 81 “... for the life --” 83 Env. notation 86 Typing speed: Abbr.

87 “Either you do it -- will!”

88 “Mighty -- a Rose” (old song) 89 1945 Oscar nominee Ann 90 -- Angeles 91 Campus mil. gp.

93 Mingle 97 Soldier of Seoul 98 Descriptor for Bigfoot 100 Performs suitably 101 Mary I and Henry VIII 102 Math ratio 104 Appeal 105 Smelly cigar 106 Leash 108 Like seven Nolan Ryan games 109 Like the Capitol’s top 110 “Phooey!”

111 Verbalized 112 Cato’s 103 113 German city 114 Russian river 115 -- buggy 116 Jets that first flew in ‘68 121 Rave VIPs 122 Pool unit 123 Six-pack --

Solution found on p. 38.

clclt.com | jun. 23 - june. 29, 2016 | 35

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part of her marriage. But her new name isn’t just about sex — it’s about identity, intimacy, connection, and sex.

Pup play isn’t as serious a business as marriage, of course, but you should be able to extend the same courtesy to Spike that you wouldn’t hesitate to extend to your hypothetical straight female coworker — that is, use the names you’ve been asked to use without obsessing over their respective sex lives.

“DOGGONE should always respect how someone identifies and asks to be named,” said Amp, “and regard the sexual or kink aspects of someone’s name choice as a separate detail.” You can — and should — follow Amp on Twitter @Pup_Amp.

“It’s important to note, firstly, that pup play isn’t a sexual activity so much as it is a head space,” said Amp, a puppy, a gamer, a porn performer, and the cohost of Watts the Safeword, a kink-friendly sex-education I recently synced my phone contacts YouTube channel. “For DOGGONE’s to my Twitter account. When I was coworker, pup play may be a comfort thing, scrolling through the list of people who or a social thing, or even a way for him turned up from my contacts, I to redefine who he is as a person so saw a username that looked that he can take control.” out of place. It was the Amp, who is 26 and lives account of a low-key in Seattle, got into pup play traditional-guy friend of about five years ago. mine. To my surprise, “A daddy and his pup on the account he was joined a group of friends dressed as a woman in on a gay camping trip,” a few of the pictures said Amp. “Their bond and was with another just seemed to glow, and Twitter user who is a their relationship stuck popular dominatrix Dan Savage with me as something I in the area where he wanted in my life. For me, lives. I’m sex-positive yes, pup play can get sexual with and support people who are my Daddy, but Amp is just who I am gender nonconforming, of course. when I’m out and about.”

I also work for a porn company, so I Like your coworker, DOGGONE, Amp don’t judge anyone who participates in goes by his puppy name socially and BDSM. My concern is that I don’t know professionally. So I put this question to him: if this person is aware that his account Does he get a secret thrill and/or a visible can be found via a regular old social boner when a coworker, barista, casual media and phone sync. I don’t want friend, or rando calls him by his pup name? him to get outed for being a fetishist “God no!” said Amp. “If someone calls me or possibly being gender questioning ‘pup’ in a really sexual way or an aggressive or transgender if he does not want to way, maybe, but not when someone is simply be out. Should I give him a heads up? using your name. A pup name is essentially Should I keep my mouth shut? I want to a nickname, and people use nicknames be respectful. socially and professionally. So long as the Knowing Isn’t Necessarily kinkier aspects of pup play — tail wagging, Knowledge, Yes? barking, ball chasing — are kept out of the workplace, DOGGONE’s coworker using his Send that traditional guy a note, KINKY, puppy name at work doesn’t involve the but “bury the lead,” as they say in the news office in his sex life.” biz. Instead of opening with those particular A quick thought experiment, DOGGONE: photos being easily accessible to all, open Let’s say a female coworker married a man with the relevant facts about yourself: “You — a really hot man — and later confided in know I work in porn, and I’m not fazed by you that she married him because the sex BDSM or sex work or any sort of genderwas great. And let’s say she took her new related sex play, and I’m a big supporter of husband’s last name. Would using her new gender-nonconforming people as well as the last name “involve” you in her sex life? Being trans community.” Then let him know what you found, how you stumbled across it, and married partly defines who she is, it led her how to adjust his privacy settings. to take a new name, and sex is an important

clclt.com | jun. 23 - june. 29, 2016 | 37

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For All Signs: Jupiter, our largest planet, will be in a favorable relationship to Pluto on June 26. The aspect is effective for about three weeks on either side of this date. It is symbolic of improvement in the economy, and a more hopeful attitude in the public. The corporate world wins the prize, though most of us will not really be aware of how that occurs. It may represent a legislative agreement on the national budget as well as forward motion on the appointment of a new Supreme Court Judge.

Generally activity is beginning to resume after three months in a holding pattern.

Aries: You have a troubling relationship that needs some kind of a finale. You may have a skirmish now that causes you to decide you are done. However, it is just a bit soon to make an ultimate decision and something inside you is aware of that. Give it about one more month. Things will improve in mid-July and your decision will be more clear.

sense of compassion and draw you into the need to assist in the healing of another. As you live in this experience, you will discover that having compassion also heals you. Your spirit will be lifted, so don’t ignore the call. Helping out can be exhausting, but remember to control the urge to bail.

Scorpio: There is some kind of relationship difficulty on your plate. You want to turn tail and run, but financial circumstances prevent your departure. Hang in there for the time being. Your ruling planet, Mars, will be clear of its retrograde motion in late June. Look for a way to turn a lemon to lemonade and rise above this situation for now. That makes it bearable for the present and you’ll learn some things along the way.

Sagittarius: You have been pummeled

Taurus: The temperature of your relationship to partner is a little coolish.

You may want nothing to do with him/her right now. Don’t nurse the anger. Your mind wants to wander in the world of fantasy, daydreams, good books, and music. It is not a great week for getting things done, but you will enjoy the journey.

with challenging aspects for several weeks.

An opportunity is coming any day now to increase your income via a work opportunity.

It is possible that if you agree to do some small thing in good spirits, the work will become a project that grows to your benefit.

If you are already employed, you likely will get approval for a job that has been pending.

Stay calm and confident during this time period.

Gemini: Think before you speak now.

Capricorn: In the larger scheme

Words may drop out of your mouth that you could regret later. Listen carefully to the feelings behind the words that others are telling you. Perhaps your better self will speak wisdom you didn’t know you had.

Cancer: You continue to struggle with a

conflict between what you feel and what you think. When we have this issue, we usually are unable to move forward in any significant way. Our minds see what is logical, rational, and orderly. But our hearts are in the space of feelings, which have no rules. It is generally best to withhold judgment until a solution develops.

Leo: It’s important that you be aware that your thinking is not as objective as you believe. Listen when others tell you their attitudes and opinions. You do not have to adopt them, but don’t reject what they say out of hand. Try to think carefully before assuming you are the only one who knows the right answers.

Virgo: You are experiencing an unusually

creative period. Relationship(s) to lovers and children are upbeat and give you pleasure.

You may be surprised when you hear yourself chatter like a magpie! Beware of an unusually strong impulse to spend now. If money is an issue, leave the credit cards at home.

38 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com

Libra: Events of this week trigger your

of things you have arrived at a point of accomplishment. You have communicated your philosophy in a way that the outlooks of others are changed. This is an important moment in time for you. It shows how useful your efforts have been. Give yourself a pat on the back and maybe a day off as a reward.

Aquarius: Matters of health continue

to vie for your attention. After July 3 your concerns will begin to ease, and you will recognize signs of improvement. Maintain an attitude of hope and expect a beneficial outcome. You certainly deserve it after all you have been through.

Pisces: You are seen by others as a power

for good. This week one or more will help you recognize that fact. The next couple of weeks are especially good for discussing important subjects with partners. You each are in a cooperative frame of mind and communications flow well. You can give and receive mutual help at this time and improve the overall energy in the relationship.

Are you interested in a personal horoscope? Vivian Carol may be reached at 704-366-3777 for private psychotherapy or astrology appointments. Website: www.horoscopesbyvivian.com.

clclt.com | jun. 23 - june. 29, 2016 | 39

40 | jun. 23 - jun. 29, 2016 | clclt.com