2017 Issue 25 Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | AUG 10 - AUG 16, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 25

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BE BOLD Nellysford, VA

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| Mills River, NC

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10

Erykah Badu brings the funk along with Goodie Mob and others at Funk Fest 2017 on Saturday, Aug. 12.

We put out weekly

10

NEWS&CULTURE AGAINST ALL ODDS Julia Preston sheds light on one-sided immigration courts in Charlotte

BY RYAN PITKIN

14

8 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 9 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN 11 MUSLIM IN CHARLOTTE: SAAD HAQ BY LARA AMERICO 13 NEWS OF THE WEIRD

FOOD MEATLESS IN SOUTH CHARLOTTE The popular Chinese restaurant Ma Ma Wok goes all-veg

BY CATHERINE BROWN

16 18 28

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

PGA GUIDE MAJOR GOLF Things to do in Charlotte after a day at Quail Hollow 19 DRINKING AND DRIVING: A NIGHT AT TOPGOLF BY RYAN PITKIN 21 PUTT-PUTT AND MORE BY MARK KEMP 22 TOP 5 DISC GOLF COURSES BY RYAN PITKIN 22 NON-GOLF TREATS BY CL STAFF

MUSIC

LIPS DON’T LIE Jaggermouth returns with a more mature second album — provided they can pull it off on time

BY JEFF TAYLOR 30 SOUNDBOARD

32

ARTS&ENT I’LL FLY AWAY In ‘Things With Wings,’ Bree Stallings ponders conversations not allowed in polite company

BY KIA O. MOORE 33 FILM REVIEW: THE DARK TOWER BY MATT BRUNSON

34

ODDS&ENDS 34 NIGHTLIFE BY AERIN SPRUILL 35 CROSSWORD 38 SAVAGE LOVE BY DAN SAVAGE

GO TO CLCLT.COM FOR VIDEOS, PODCASTS AND MORE!

COVER DESIGN

BY DANA VINDIGNI CLCLT.COM | AUG 10 - AUG 16, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 25

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VIEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

WHAT ABOUT GOLF? The secret history of hipsters on the links

BY MARK KEMP

EVERYBODY KNOWS true jocks love

football and basketball. Stoners and artists prefer to hike or camp or surf or skateboard.

And we all like baseball.

But what about golf?

When the CL staff was putting together this week’s special section on stuff to do during the PGA Championship, some of the staffers in the office balked.

“So tell us again: Why is Creative Loafing Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer may be the doing a golf section?” hippest golfer on the planet.

Because, dammit, golf is not just your executive granddady’s sport anymore. You to write extensively about golf for Golf don’t have to wear the uniform of Polo shirts Digest, Golf Illustrated, Links Magazine and and pressed slacks.

Golfweek. In his book The Poetics of Golf, Just ask Fat Mike Burkett, the tattooed Brumer talked with Robby Krieger, former front man of West Coast punk legends guitarist of the Doors, who compared golf NOFX. Or Darryl Jenifer of the pioneering to making art.

D.C. hardcore band Bad Brains, who plays at “When you think about it, to get a little Brooklyn’s Marine Park Golf Course when ball this big from 500 yards away into a he’s not laying down the ferociously fast little hole in four or five shots is pretty bass line to the punk classic “Pay to impossible,” Krieger told Brumer.

Cum,” plucking a loping bottom “And the only way you can do end on one of Bad Brains’ it is by overcoming your self, reggae tunes, or painting in and that kind of pushing his art studio. away at the barriers of your Or ask the ’90s sociallimitations is what art is justice-rapper-turnedall about. It’s like Zen — jazz-pianist Dred Scott, you bring something up who you’ll find on the from deep within.” links at Dyker Beach in Closer to home, the Brooklyn when he’s not dudes who once called tickling the keys at the themselves Hootie & the Village jazz club Smalls.

MARK KEMP Blowfish play golf, but that And we can’t just credit isn’t so surprising. And while Tiger Woods for hippifying golf, Michael Jordan isn’t as dazzling although he did make it less white. on the golf course as he was on the Alice Cooper has famously golfed for basketball court, he’s pretty cool, though not decades and is considered one of rock’s best cool in the art sense. players. He even offered the occasional tip to The point is, we know that on any given his fellow rockers back in the day. Like the night at Snug Harbor or Petra’s or Hattie’s late Lou Reed — you know, the guy who co— or on any given day over at C3 Lab — founded Velvet Underground, the infamous there are golfers among you indie rockers, and influential New York City art-noise-rock rappers, painters and sculptors. You may not band whose strung-out members hung out be admitting it, but you’re out there. at Andy Warhol’s Factory?

So it’s for you — not to mention all those “Lou goes, ‘I keep pushing the ball to folks who are flocking into the Queen City the right,’” Cooper recalled to Golf Digest in this week for the big tournament but don’t 2008. “I tell him, ‘Lighten your right-hand want to be hanging out at some stuffy south grip so the club will turn over.’ He starts Charlotte country club the whole time — practicing this motion, totally into it, and that we offer CL’s guide to non-uppity golfthen it sort of hits us at the same time. I related fun in the Charlotte area. mean, could anyone have dreamed 25 years (Self-disclosure: I played a little golf in ago, sitting in the Chelsea Hotel, that Lou high school. I wasn’t very good at it, and I Reed and Alice Cooper would ever be having only did it to get out in the woods where I that conversation?” could hide out and smoke something other Even Swedish EDM DJ Tim Bergling than cigarettes. But I played.) (aka Avicii) recently took up golf.

You? It’s OK, you can remain anonymous.

Andy Brumer is a poet and writer who Happy handicaps. pens book and art reviews, but also happens 8 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

BARTER Management at the Quail Valley on Carmel apartment complex in south Charlotte checked their night deposit box one morning last week to find that someone didn’t have the money to pay their rent but offered up something even better. The apartment manager called police and turned over a bag of marijuana, a bag of cocaine and a single pill that was found in the night deposit box on the last morning of the month. This would be a great replacement for rent, except the entire stash was valued at only $16.

You’re going to have to do a little better than that for a month’s rent.

PASS THE TORCH In another unsolicited

trade case, a 40-year-old west Charlotte woman filed a report after someone trashed her front yard, but left behind a trade. The woman told officers she returned home one night to find that someone had left a bike pump in her front yard, which she found odd. It wasn’t until the morning that she found that the suspect took something in return. The suspect took four Citronella candles and her water hose nozzle.

For good measure, the thief-turned-vandal also pulled two Tiki torches from her porch and threw them on the ground, then pulled an umbrella from the mailbox and threw it onto a nearby chair.

A/C A 43-year-old man called police after

someone tried to install an air conditioner into his car, but went about it the wrong way. The man told police that he was sitting in his car in the Atkins Circle Apartments in Ballantyne at about 7 a.m. when the suspect approached his car and threw a large box fan at it, hitting the trunk. The fan didn’t cool the man off, but instead did $500 of damage to his car.

DEFAULT DEWALT Employees at a Home

Depot on Wendover Road in east Charlotte in July realized that a couple had gotten the best of them three months earlier. According to reports, a couple walked into the store on March 19 and picked out a $279 Dewalt power drill, then brought it to the return desk and presented the employee with a false receipt that they had apparently made themselves. They made off with the money, but they didn’t stop there. They returned on March 27 and pulled the same stunt with the same drill, then decided to switch it up.

On April 7, they went with a Dewalt grinder worth $139. On April 10, the pair stepped it up when they went into the store and picked out a power saw worth $99, a wrench worth $159 and another drill worth $199, all made by Dewalt. Nobody was the wiser until July, when someone filing paperwork finally realized all the receipts were fake.

SELF-PROMOTION Management at Rise Biscuits Donuts in Steele Creek was also a little slow on the uptake when they were scammed by one of their own employees earlier this year. According to the report, the

man’s boss recently realized that the man had cashed two fraudulent paychecks at some point between May and July. In one of the incidents, the man was accidentally given a paycheck that he didn’t earn, and was told to destroy it. Of course, he didn’t. He was more proactive with his second scam, which involved taking the liberty to write his own false paycheck for a higher payment than he was entitled to. Management told police the man quit when he was confronted about it, and why not, he got off with a total of $2,483 that he didn’t deserve in the end. However, he’ll be rethinking things when the police show up at his door any day now.

BAD SERVICE Police responded to a Metro PCS store in the Ayrsley area in southwest Charlotte after a customer became irate and took his phone troubles into his own hands.

A 20-year-old employee at the store told police the man became upset while trying to have an issue with his phone checked out and punched him in the face. He suffered minor injuries but refused treatment by Medic.

BAIT AND SWITCH A 69-year-old woman

was tricked by a thief in the CATS transit center in Uptown last week and it resulted in the loss of her wallet. According to the woman, the man was running a scam that focused on her weakness for the word of the Lord. She told officers that the man walked up to her with a bag of religious booklets asking if she was interested in reading one.

During the conversation, the man dropped one of the booklets on the ground, and when the woman bent down to pick it up, he stole the wallet out of the top of her purse, which she had sitting on her lap, and walked off.

IN GOD’S BACKYARD A group of children saw a scary sight while playing outside at a church function in west Charlotte last week, and were able to help police apprehend a man brandishing a gun on church property. The kids told their parents the man had waved the gun near the church’s playground area then walked off, and the parents then called police. Officers found the man walking down Beatties Ford Road and confronted him. The man was found with a Taurus 9 mm and two bags of weed in his pocket, and how he’ll need some prayers.

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 9

NEWS

FEATURE

AGAINST ALL ODDS Julia Preston sheds light on one-sided immigration courts in Charlotte RYAN PITKIN

I

N MARCH 2016, Creative

Loafing reported on the North Carolina 6, a story of six N.C. teenagers who had been snatched up

by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers after having missed immigration hearings or been denied the asylum they sought in the United States.

These six young men were a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of families and young immigrants who came across the southwestern border of the United States in 2014, fleeing unspeakable violence in their hometowns in Central America.

Julia Preston, a former immigration reporter for the New York Times, has been tracking the outcome of these pleas for asylum over the past three years, and she’s seen an extremely low number of cases granted by immigration judges.

Last week, Preston released a feature story with nonprofit journalism platform The Marshall Project in conjunction with The Washington Post highlighting what she found.

Her reporting brought her to Charlotte, one of the most difficut places for asylum seekers, whose lives often hang in the balance as they face deportation back into danger.

CL spoke with Preston following the story’s publication to discuss what Charlottearea asylum seekers are facing and how the legal system is letting them down.

Creative Loafing: In short, what did you find during your reporting for this piece?

Julia Preston: I found that across the country, but particularly in Charlotte, the asylum cases of families who came across the border since 2014 and asked for protection from the United States and have pursued their claims in immigration court, those cases are massively failing, to the degree that the cases are ending with judges issuing deportation orders for the immigrants in absentia.

In the family cases, 70 percent of those cases so far are ending in deportation orders issued in absentia; that is to say a judge is issuing the order to an empty courtroom because the person did not show up in court.

The numbers of families who won their asylum claims, I cite a figure of about 1,100 in my story, it’s probably more than that by this time, but not by much. So it’s a tiny percentage, it’s in the 10 to 11 percent range 10 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

Julia Preston speaks with a Border Patrol agent during her reporting. of all these cases where people are winning their cases, which is a sign of crisis, because we know what the conditions are in the countries they’re coming from.

Honduras and El Salvador for the last few years have been in a rivalry to be the murder capital of the world, so the likelihood that such a big proportion of their claims are frivolous or unjustified just doesn’t seem likely. What’s significant is that we’re talking about a deportation; this is a very severe outcome. If you lose your case, you’re going to be sent back to a country that you ran away from and you went through this whole process to plead that very likely your daughter would be raped, your son would be recruited by a vicious gang, your relative would be shot, these are the claims that people have asserted.

If they lose, it’s really bad.

What brought you to Charlotte while doing this reporting?

I came to Charlotte because Charlotte is in the bottom five of the courts granting asylum in the country. There’s one court that stands out as the worst place in the country to try to win an asylum case, which is Atlanta, but Charlotte is not far behind Atlanta on the scale of courts that are very difficult in terms of winning an asylum claim. Some people do win, and a lot of these families from the surge have come to the Carolinas. They’ve ended up in Raleigh, Durham and South Carolina, because particularly in the case of the kids, their families are there. Also, for the adults, they have to find a relative or someone to sponsor them to be let go at the border. So a lot of families have ended up in this area and it’s turned out to be a particularly unfriendly place for these families to try to make these asylum claims.

Many of these people aren’t showing up

to court because they don’t know the process, and they don’t have a lawyer.

Why is access to legal representation so low?

There are lots of skilled hard-working immigration lawyers in Charlotte and in the area, there’s no question about that, but it’s a dilemma for them. Most immigration lawyers can’t afford to do a lot of work pro bono, and an asylum case is complicated. It requires a lot of work, and now the courts are so delayed, it also requires a major time commitment.

If you look at the percentages of success in the immigration court in Charlotte and you’re a lawyer and you’re about to tell a client, an indigent immigrant, a woman who’s fled from El Salvador, “Look, it’s going to cost you $5,000 to have me work on this case, and your chances of success, depending on the judge you get, are less than one in five,” it’s a dilemma for these lawyers. They don’t want to lose the case and they don’t want to misrepresent the odds to their client.

What has happened is there is some new pro bono representation in the area and there are lawyers who are willing to take on these cases, because they understand how critical the need is, so there are a number of lawyers in the Charlotte area who are starting to go into that court and fight, so that’s a positive development.

You focus on two Charlotte immigration judges in your article, Stuart Couch and Barry Pettinato, who both have startlingly low numbers when it comes to granting asylum. Why is that?

In terms of the judges, it’s not for me to say that they are wrong. They have a view of the law and they are quite certain that they are right about their interpretation of the law. The issue is that the law has been interpreted differently in lots of other places

PHOTO BY ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN

in the country. There are judges in courts around the country who have an 80 percent grant rate, and I’m not saying they’re right either, I’m just giving you an idea of the range of different views in immigration courts.

If a good lawyer can take the case through the Charlotte court and they lose but they can go to appeal, then the issues can be aired and perhaps the court will become more flexible in terms of their treatment of people from Central America.

Also, the Charlotte court just in the last few weeks has added a fourth judge. That just happened, so that may change things. But it may not, because the particular judge who came to Charlotte came from Arlington, and he has an even lower grant rate than the two judges that are so tough here. I don’t know enough about this judge’s record in Arlington, but based on statistics he’s had a very low grant rate.

How do these judges read the law so much differently from others around the country?

They have a particular reading of the statute and the case law that leads them to believe that asylum law as its written just does not apply to people who are fleeing criminal violence.

They believe that’s just not appropriate, it’s not what asylum law is for.

The traditional categories in asylum law are what you would think of for refugees: religious persecution, nationality, race and political beliefs. But there is a fifth corner of that statute that, in many courts around the country, people have been able to make claims and win them. But in this court, those two judges just don’t think that’s appropriate.

How has the transition of power to the Trump administration changed things in these cases?

The Trump administration has taken the

policy that anyone who does not have legal immigration status in the US can be deported.

This is a contrast with the last years of President Obama. The Obama administration made a concerted effort to focus enforcement on people who had committed serious crimes. The Trump administration has set its priorities to focus on criminals, but it will pick up and deport anybody who doesn’t have status.

So all of these families are in that category, and they have now the equivalent of an arrest warrant — an order of removal, a deportation order from the court — and there’s nothing stopping ICE from going out and picking them up. And, in fact, last week, ICE did just that.

ICE arrested 650 people around the country last week in an operation that they described as being a sequel to what they did in January 2016 [when the North Carolina 6 were apprehended].

They arrested 650 people who were mostly families and unaccompanied minors whose cases failed in immigration court.

I’m reminded of Wildin Acosta [of the North Carolina 6], because that was a case where he had missed a hearing and he had gotten one of these orders. It’s very easy to miss a hearing, and if you do, you lose your case and you have an arrest warrant out. And that’s what’s happening to so many of these families. When I was in Charlotte, I spoke with the mayor, and she said that what she feels is that the immigrant community is in fear.

The mayor is articulating the idea that the Trump administration has been so aggressive in its rhetoric and in its enforcement already that there’s a high degree of fear in the community, and she, the mayor, was trying to reassure the community that the Charlotte police department was not going to become part of an immigration force.

If the mayor is telling you that there’s fear in the community, you can probably realize that this is true. That adds to the reluctance of people to go to court, because they think the court is stacked against them, when in fact based on the record of the court, you could argue that that’s pretty much true. And they think ICE is going to be on their trail the minute they leave the courtroom, so they prefer to take their chances and just not go to court.

Julia Preston.

PHOTO BY MARIE PAPP

What do you hope comes out of a report like your recent piece with The Marshall Project?

The clear conclusion is that people need lawyers to succeed in immigration court, and particularly to succeed in the Charlotte immigration court, and this is something that the community needs to look at and see if there isn’t a way to address it.

The federal government is not going to pay for lawyers and in fact, the House of Representatives is considering legislation that would cut back or eliminate the few funds that exist for pro bono lawyers for immigrants in immigration court. But this is creating a situation in Charlotte where you have a growing number of people in Charlotte who are out of immigration status, who have made asylum claims, and now those claims are failing, so it’s a whole new generation of undocumented people and it doesn’t have to be that way. They’ve started a process in court and if they had some help they would carry through with it. So, maybe folks in Charlotte and the Charlotte law community can think about addressing this issue.

RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

NEWS

MUSLIM IN CHARLOTTE

RETAKING THE NARRATIVE Meet Saad Haq

BY LARA AMERICO [Editor’s Note: Last year, CL contributor Lara Americo debuted her photo series “Trans & Queer in the Workplace” in Creative Loafing between August and December. The series was eventually picked up by Huffington Post and served as the basis for Americo’s Chrysalis exhibit at C3 Lab. This year, Americo highlights another marginalized and misunderstood population, the local Muslim population.

Every other week, we will be running a photo and some insights from Muslim Charlotteans, as they discuss their work, their personal lives and the judgment they often live with. This week, Americo features Saad Haq. Visit clclt.com for previous entries and videos of Americo’s subjects.]

Saad Haq, 38, lives with his family in Charlotte. In December 2015, he launched Muslim Storytellers, a podcast aimed at telling the stories of everyday Muslims.

“The goal is to take back control of the narrative by telling their own stories ... It seems like our stories are being hijacked by the media and even in TV and movies where we’re being depicted as negative characters or villans where Muslims are not these villains or bad guys. We just want to blend in to society like everybody else is trying to do.

Fortunately, I haven’t faced any direct acts of Islamophobia but my wife and my daughter have. When we were going to Charleston for vacation we stopped at a gas station to get gas and go to the bathroom. I was waiting in the car with the kids while my wife was coming out, she came to the car and she told me there was a guy in there who told her to go back to her country — to where she came from. This is why I wanted to do Muslim Storytellers, so that I have an outlet, and I can also provide people an outlet where they can use their voice to make a change, to be a positive influence on others.”

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12 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

NEWS

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

DIGITAL COCKTAIL If you visit Dawson

City in Canada’s Yukon Territory, you can’t skip one of its famous traditions: sipping on a Sourtoe Cocktail at the Sourdough Saloon.

The drink, conceived in 1973, comprises the cocktail of your choice garnished with a pickled amputated human toe. (“You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips have gotta touch the toe,” says “toe master” Terry Lee.) On June 18, one of the saloon’s toes went missing when a patron, who identified himself as “a drunken fool,” took the digit — specifically, a second toe. Although the thief mailed the toe back with an apology, Travel Yukon has launched a campaign for an “insurance toe,” saying, “Our toe was returned, but we can always use backups!”

THE CONTINUING CRISIS Demit Strato

of New York took to Facebook on June 26 from his throne room to excoriate his local Starbucks for making his venti iced coffee with regular milk instead of soy milk, as he ordered it. “I’ve pooped 11 times since the A.M. My bottom hurts from all the wiping.

Do you think I enjoy soy milk? ... I don’t order soy milk because I’m bored and want my drink order to sound fancy. I order soy milk so that my bottom doesn’t blast fire for 4 hours.” For its part, Starbucks sent Strato a $50 gift card, and he told Buzzfeed that “many women are trying to go out on a date after this, too.”

Reitz began visiting Disneyland every day after receiving an annual pass as a gift in 2012. At the time, he was unemployed, but he continued his habit even after finding a job, using the $1,049 Disney Signature Plus Passport. “Until today, cast members would think I looked familiar, but now they know who I am,” Reitz said. “It’s been positive, it’s been a motivator, it’s been my workout gym.

This past year I’ve lost about 40 pounds.”

PANTY RAIDER A serial underwear thief

in Tokyo was finally snagged July 4 when he was caught on surveillance video stealing nine women’s undergarments that had been hung out to dry. Yasushi Kobayashi, 61, told police that he’d been lifting lingerie for 20 years because he enjoys wearing them.

Police found more than 1,000 pieces during a search of his home.

GREAT ART Police in St. Petersburg, Florida, were hunting in late June for the artist tagging buildings with ... butt cheeks.

At least 20 downtown fanny paintings, sporting from two to seven buttocks, have been reported. “It’s not very creative,” sniffed one office worker. “The bottom line is,

whoever is doing this is destroying property,” Assistant Police Chief Jim Previterra said.

Property owners are wiping the butts away as fast as they appear, but police say the vandal, when caught, will have to pay for cleanup.

POLICE REPORT (1) A SWAT team from the Sumter County (Florida) Sheriff’s department raided The Villages retirement community on June 21, uncovering what they believe is a golf cart chop-shop operation, along with illegal drugs, in the sprawling complex near Ocala. Souped-up golf carts are a popular way to get around in the community, which is home to more than 150,000 people. Windshields, seat cushions, wheels and tires were found in the garage, along with drugs “in plain sight” in the home, Deputy Gary Brannen said. Five people, ranging in age from 38 to 63, were arrested. (2) A hopeful driver, pulled over

by Dakota County (Minnesota) Deputy Mike Vai in June, produced a “get out of jail free” card from a Monopoly game in an effort to escape charges on a controlled substance warrant. The amused officer shared the incident on his department’s Facebook page.

PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM US A China Southern Airlines flight between Shanghai and Guangzhou was delayed for five hours on June 27 after an 80-year-old passenger, identified only as Qiu, was spotted tossing coins into the engine as she boarded “to pray for a safe flight.” Passengers already onboard were asked to deplane while crews searched inside the engine and around the area, ultimately finding nine coins totaling the equivalent of about 25 cents. Local news outlets estimated the cost of the delay and the search at $140,000.

COMPULSION Could it have been overconsumption of caffeine that provoked Londoner Kit Lovelace to scan all 236 episodes of “Friends” to chronicle how much coffee each character drank? Lovelace told the Huffington Post in June he was disappointed that no one had ever collected data about the characters’ coffee habits, so he meticulously studied how much they drank, how their consumption changed over the years and how much they spent on coffee. Spoiler alert: Phoebe drank the most coffee, and collectively the group spent more than $2,000 on joe over the course of the 10-season series.

MICKEY, JR. A California man’s 2,000th visit to Disneyland in Anaheim on June 22 made him a celebrity in the park. Jeff CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 13

FOOD

FEATURE

MEATLESS IN SOUTH CHARLOTTE The popular Chinese restaurant Ma Ma Wok goes all-veg

BY CATHERINE BROWN

N

OT FAR from the sprawling Stonecrest shopping center, Ma Ma Wok is tucked into a small neighborhood center off Elm Lane where, at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday, you’ll find plenty of parking. Owner Jian Chen, a small woman with a large smile, greets us as we enter. For a moment, there’s a slight flicker of worry in her eyes.

“This is all-vegetarian restaurant now,” Chen warns. “Is OK?” I can’t help but giggle as my vegan dining partner loudly declares, “That is most definitely OK!” For the past 11 years, Ma Ma Wok has delighted South Charlotte and Ballantynearea diners with traditional Chinese dishes such as General Tso’s Chicken, Orange Peel Chicken and Sa Cha Beef. And while the restaurant continues to serve those dishes to customers, as of August 1, Ma Ma Wok became a 100-percent vegetarian restaurant.

Those meat items are now prepared with meat substitues.

“Some customers are upset. Very upset,” Chen says. “And they have a right to their opinions. But most customers, they are happy for us and willing to try. And once they try, they like.

“Everyone is eating more vegetarian these days — one meatless meal a day, or one meatless meal a week,” Chen continues.

“And it is good food. It is delicious food. It is prepared exact same way. It is almost exactly the same — there is just no meat.”

Ma Ma Wok’s transition was big news for vegans and vegetarians, whose choices in the Charlotte area continue to grow as meatless diets become more mainstream.

We ask Chen if her decision to go all-veg was a business strategy. No, she answers. “Business was very good before.

No need change for more business,” Chen says. “But my family has been vegetarian for years — because it is healthy, because of environment, because of animal love.

We want to support vegetarianism in the community. Making this restaurant all-veg was the right thing to do.”

Long known for its takeout menu, Ma Ma Wok also has a dining area with five comfortable booths and several small tables accomodating about 35. We choose a booth by the window; nearby, a few other booths are filled with Asian families, always a good 14 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY CATHERINE BROWN

Ma Ma Wok’s Asparagus Chicken sign at a Chinese restaurant. Sounds and smells from the kitchen are minimal. It’s a simple, but pleasant dine-in experience.

As we review the menu, Chen offers suggestions. We talk about vegetarianism, the veg community in Charlotte, and what made her decide to make such a major, potentially risky change to a well-established restaurant.

As we chat, her enthusiasm for Ma Ma Wok’s new vegetarian phase is evident.

A big part of the transition is Ma Ma Wok’s new chef, Fang Xian Chen (no relation), who owned the popular Garden Café in Orlando for 13 years. The Garden Café was notable for its ultra-fresh vegetables and perfectly spiced sauces, and had a cult status among vegetarians nationwide. Garden was one of the first restaurants to use a variety of faux meats in different textures. For example, the same soy chicken chunks were not used for all chicken dishes; nor were the same seitan beef strips used for all beef dishes. After undergoing new ownership in 2011, Garden closed in June 2016.

Chef Fang moved to the Charlotte area to be closer to his child, who attended college

here, and he initially worked at Lee Café, an unassuming but popular Chinese restaurant in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Due to spiritual reasons (he’s a Taoist) and health reasons (he suffered from kidney stones), Chef Fang has been vegetarian for 21 years.

THE BIG QUESTION for me and my partner was this: How does Ma Ma Wok’s vegetarian food taste? Although I am a vegan foodie who always wants to support local veg businesses, I cannot endorse mediocre food just because it’s vegan or vegetarian.

Ma Ma Wok fulfilled all my expectations for good vegan fare.

The menu is long and comprehensive. If you are veg in Charlotte and have resigned yourself to steamed Chinese vegetables or “Bean Curd Family Style,” prepare to have your world (and taste buds) rocked.

The new menu at Ma Ma Wok offers vegetarian (and often vegan) versions of almost everything you have ever seen, or dreamed of, on a Chinese menu. Not only does it include 12 appetizers (I admit, the French fries are stretching it), seven soups,

five varieties of fried rice, four different noodles (customized with four choices of veggie protein), and 11 veggie sushis, the menue boasts 53 entrees. That’s a lot of choices on one menu.

Don’t feel like Chinese? No worries. The menu also includees a veggie burger and Portobello mushroom sandwich.

Ma Ma Wok’s menu could use a clarification, though. While all items are vegetarian, not all of them are vegan. In some categories, vegan items are clearly marked; in others, they are not. I suspect this is because vegan may depend on the veggie meat option you choose.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. My dining partner and I ask Chen numerous questions — even before I revealed my “secret identity” as a Creative Loafing food reporter.

Believing us to be two ordinary (if abnormally curious) vegans who somehow bumbled in to the restaurant, Chen is extraordinarily helpful. She goes back to the kitchen to ask Chef Fang questions; checks the packaging on the veggie proteins. I get the feeling this is the kind of restaurant that will work with you

U.N.C C FOOTBALL BE PART OF THE EXCITEMENT

HIRING EVENT STAFF (USHERS, TICKETS TAKERS) & SECURITY FOR UPCOMING 2017-18 SEASON

2017 JOB FAIR AND ORIENTATION SUNDAY AUGUST 13th JOB FAIR & ORIENTATION 9:00 AM TO 12:00PM EPIC BUILDING RM G256 PPSB TRAINING AFTER ORIENTATION 12:00PM TO 2:00PM Enter UNCC off of North Tryon Street at Institute Circle, to Robert D Synder Road, to Philips Road Park in the Stadium Parking Lot, look for the job fair signs PHOTO BY CATHERINE BROWN

Chef Fang Xian Chen (left) with owner Jian Chen (center; no relation) and her sister. on your dietary requirements, whether those requirements are based on your religion, ethics, or medical needs.

We start with appetizers: Lettuce Wraps with celery, bell peppers, and vegetarian ham ($6.99). Though this item isn’t marked “vegan” on the menu, Chen confirms that it is. The wraps are attractively served with the filling pre-portioned into romaine lettuce leaves. My dining partner tells me he has never seen lettuce wraps before that were not “do it yourself,” but served this way, the wraps are easier to share and less messy to eat.

We also order the Spring Rolls ($1.79), which are piping hot, and despite being deep-fried, they’re not at all greasy. (All of the food we order is light on oil). Though Chen informs us the Spring Rolls are housemade and not frozen, it was already quite deliciously obvious.

“Except for the veggie meats, everything we serve is fresh,” she says. “We make here.

Our spring rolls, our sauces — everything.”

For entrees, my dining partner orders the Spicy Orange Peel Chicken ($10.99). A beautifully plated dish, the orange color of the sauce contrasts brilliantly with the bright green of the broccoli. The orange flavor from the zest is strong, and the texture of the chicken is disconcertingly realistic. I don’t often believe faux meats will fool an omnivore, but the Spicy Orange Peel Chicken just might.

I choose the Asparagus with Chicken — very thinly sliced “chicken” strips with asparagus, carrots, mushrooms and broccoli ($14.99). I tell Chen that I prefer it spicy and she assures me, “We can customize your order. More spicy, less spicy; salty, less salty. We can make the Orange Peel chicken less sweet.” When my order arrives it is perfectly spicy — enough to taste, but at a level most people can handle. The thinly sliced “chicken” tastes more like beef, but whatever; it satisfies my umami cravings.

All of the vegetables, from the asparagus to

MA MA WOK Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; 4 p.m.-9:30 p.m. (closes 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.); closed Mondays. 11914 Elm Lane, Ste. 100.

704-544-8863/8869. mamawokvegi. webs.com

JERRY RICHARDSON FOOTBALL STADIUM AT UNC CHARLOTTE

8701 PHILIPS RD. CHARLOTTE, NC 28223 We are seeking energetic people ages 18 and older.

People with criminal records need not apply. Background checks will be conducted.

Must bring state issued driver’s licesnse or ID.

2 CHARLOTTE

LOCATIONS!

10.04.2017

PHOTO BY CATHERINE BROWN Ma Ma Wok mushrooms, are cooked to perfection.

Overall, the meal is exquisite. Chef Fang definitely knows his way around a wok.

We leave with to-go boxes, feeling comfortably full and a little nostalgic.

Nostalgic, because I know that once word gets out in Charlotte’s rapidly growing veg community, quiet Wednesday evenings spent leisurely talking to Chen and Chef Fang will be a thing of the past.

Bisonte Pizza Co. on trade St. 710 W. TRADE ST, CHARLOTTE, NC 28202

980-242-4395

Bisonte Pizza Co. in Mathews 1381 CHESTNUT LANE MATTHEWS, NC 28104

704-821-8003

WWW.BISONTEPIZZACO.COM

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 15

THURSDAY

10

WYCLEF JEAN What: Back in 2010, Wyclef Jean thought he’d be gone ’till the November elections in Haiti, where he filed to run for president. But Haiti disqualified the former Fugee, whose family immigrated from there to the U.S. when Wyclef was 9. So he went back to doing what he does best: cranking out great songs like “Gone ‘Till November.”

His latest is The Carnival Vol. III: The Fall & Rise of a Refugee, which includes a song dedicated to the llate Afrobeat pioneer Fela.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. More: $32-$42. neighborhoodtheatre.com.

16 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

THURSDAY

10

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Lisa Lampanelli THURSDAY PHOTO COURTESY OF TICKETMASTER

THURSDAY

10

LISA LAMPANELLI

DAVE MADE A MAZE

What: Insult King Don Rickles may be dead, but his spirit lives on in the Queen of Mean, Lisa Lampanelli, who once roasted Donald Trump and said he took it pretty well, considering he’s so damn thin-skinned. “Trump actually thinks I’m kidding. He thinks I’m actually joking around,” she once told the Miami New Times. “I take full credit for my comedic talent and his stupidity.” Here’s hoping she’ll have some choice insults for the golfers in town for Charlotte’s debut as host of a PGA major.

What: The Back Alley Film Series continues its hot streak of creepycool cinema this summer, following up last month’s carnivorous mermaid tale The Lure with this portrait of an artist trapped by his own devices. Dave retreats into a self-devised maze to escape everyday pressures. But his comforting blanket fort-on-steroids threatens to suffocate him. Is this a metaphor for those of us who spend too much time in our heads, or are we over-thinking this?

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Comedy Zone, 900 NC Music Factory Blvd..

More: $35. cltcomedyzone.com.

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: C3 Lab, 2525 Distribution St., 28203 More: $5 - 10. charlottefilmsociety. com.

SATURDAY

12

SATURDAY

12

FUNK FEST: ERYKAH BADU, GOODIE MOB

CHAD CALEK PRESENTS SIR NOFACE LIVES

What: Music-festival lineups don’t get better than this: The exquisite Erykah Badu shares the event with Southern rap pioneers Goodie Mob on a beautiful (we hope) Saturday under a clear (we hope) Carolinablue sky. That would be enough in itself to get your butt (and mind) up and shaking, but there’s more: Babyface will be in the house, and so will Bobby Brown and Jagged Edge and ever-reliable old-school beatboxer Doug E. Fresh.

What: In 2013, a team of Australian investigators trekked to a remote island to check out reports of ghostly activity. Director Chad Calek documented the search that culminated in an uncanny apparition called Sir Noface. Need more scares? Take a creepy tour of Uptown with Carolina History & Haunts at 7 and 8:30 p.m. Sure, it’s the same time as Noface, but with paranormal activity who says you can’t be in two places at once?

When: 2 p.m.-11 p.m.

Where: PNC Music Pavilion, 707 Pavilion Blvd.

More: $52 and up. charlotte. funkfesttour.com.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: McGlohon Theater, 345 N. College St. More: $25 and up. blumenthalarts. org.

A Place Both Wonderful and Strange SATURDAY

Bronze Buckaroo SATURDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

Dave Made a Maze THURSDAY PHOTO COURTESY OF CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY

SATURDAY

12

A PLACE BOTH WONDERFUL AND STRANGE What: Taking their name from a Twin Peaks quote, A Place Both Wonderful and Strange make dance pop that’s mysterious, eerie and propulsive. The neopagan occult trio builds on 1980s Goth rock of acts like the Sisters of Mercy, and the pioneering electronica of Delia Derbyshire, who arranged the original Dr. Who theme. Their wonderful and strange grooves exude a warmth and empathy that fits the tunes like a black leather glove.

When: 9 p.m.

Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St., 28202 More: $7. snugrock.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF A PLACE BOTH WONDERFUL AND STRANGE

COURTESY OF THE HARVEY B. GANTT CENTER

SATURDAY

12

THE CLASSIC BLACK CINEMA SERIES: BRONZE BUCKAROO

MONDAY

14

TUEADAY

15

WEDNESDAY

16

KNOCTURNAL

SONGBIRDS OF SUMMER

KNIGHTS VS. MUD HENS

What: Like the chitlin’ circuit for black musicians, and the Negro League for baseball players, there was an alternative black movie industry in the 1930s and ’40s. This mirror image of white Hollywood cranked out tons of B westerns like Bronze Buckaroo, complete with comic sidekick, chaste heroine and a singing cowboy. This ebony oater’s star, Herb Jeffries, had a separate — and very successful — career as a jazz vocalist.

What: After reading last week’s nightlife column in CL, we realized our intrepid nightlife reporter Aerin Spruill had only recently discovered the joys of Justin Aswell’s weekly night of trap, house, hip-hop and general booty-shaking. We figured if Aerin wasn’t privy to this (very) reasonably priced weekly event featuring great music, dancing and discovery, then maybe you aren’t either. Or maybe you’re in town for the first day of the PGA and ready to dive head first into Charlotte culture. Well, come on out!

What: Long before she garnered accolades for her role in Fun Home, 19-year-old Abby Corrigan teamed with friend Matt Mitchell to form the theatrical troupe Treehouse Acting Company, which created and staged the award-winning musical Cybersoul. Now Treehouse presents a benefit for The Arts Empowerment Project & The Youth Exchange Project, featuring musical performances by Corrigan, Mitchell and a host of talented young artists. The future of the Charlotte musical theater scene is here.

What: You’ve been following professional golfers around Quail Hollow for three days and you’ve just about had enough of walking around a glorified cow pasture in the hot sun (or rain, depending on the weather). Go splurge and get yourself a good seat at BB&T Ballpark (we like the spots behind behind both dugouts with the spectacular views of the Charlotte skyline) and watch the Charlotte Knights trample the Toledo Mud Hens.

When: 2 p.m.

Where: Harvey B. Gantt Center, 551 South Tryon St., 28202 More: $9. ganttcenter.org.

When: 10 p.m.

Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: $2. snugrock.com.

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Evening Muse, 3227 N Davidson St., 28205 More: $10. eveningmuse.com.

When: 7:05 p.m.

Where: BB&T Ballpark Charlotte, 324 South Mint St. More: $12 and up. charlotteknights. com.

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 17

A guide to Charlotte after a day at the links AND THEY’RE OFF. Beginning Thursday, Aug. 10, the world’s greatest golfers will hit the links at Quail Hollow at 7:35 a.m. for the summer’s final major golf tournament, the PGA Championship.

An hour later, the dynamic trio of Sergio Garcia (who triumphed at the 2017 Masters back in April, taking home $1.9 million), Brooks Koepka (who took home the big $2.1 million chuck of the U.S. Open’s whopping $12 million purse in June), and Jordan Spieth (who won the British Open in July and would complete a career Grand Slam with a win in Charlotte) will tee off at No. 10.

It should be an exciting first day for lovers of golf.

But what to do afterwards and in between? That’s where Creative Loafing comes in. On the following pages, you’ll find out where to get your own practice in at area driving ranges, Par 3 courses and tons of mini golf options for the kiddies. If you’re in town with a golf lover but could care less about golf, we have a few non-golf recommendations. Take them with a sense of humor, please. And if disc golf is more your thing, we have you covered there, too, as Charlotte has become the most popular disc golf destination in the country.

Then later, party it up at the new Top Golf, where you can do it all: drink and drive (with a club, that is). Just remember — don’t take this PGA thing so damn seriously. It’s just golf.

18 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

SPORTS

PGA

DRINKING AND DRIVING A range for any kind of golf fan — or non-fan

TOP GOLF

BY RYAN PITKIN

AT 32 YEARS old, Craig Kessler looks

more like the average millennial golf fan checking out Charlotte’s newest golf and entertainment center, Topgolf, than the COO of the company’s U.S. operations.

Sitting in a Topgolf suite on Monday night, August 7, he glimpses around while eating prime rib made by the onsite executive chef. “The community has totally embraced this,” he says. “Tonight is a Monday night, and we’re on a four-hour wait because the community is so fired up about this business.”

It was to be expected that Topgolf, best described as a driving range 2.0, would be packed on Monday, the first night of the first PGA Championship week ever to be hosted in Charlotte. But it’s been consistently hard to get a spot on the range at Topgolf since it opened in June.

That’s because it’s golf, but without all the smug.

The main feature at Topgolf is a driving range that’s been souped up to resemble something that 10 years ago could only be played on Tiger Woods PGA Tour video games. Each flag on the range is surrounded by a target that drops into the ground beneath, and a sensor in each ball tells computers exactly where it landed and who hit it, which instantly translates back to a screen to show the player how they’ve scored, depending on which of the multiple mini games they’re playing.

Add to that the live DJ playing every Friday and Saturday night and a local beer menu, and you’ve got an impressive experience, even for folks who aren’t that into golf.

“We offer a product that doesn’t really exist anywhere else,” Kessler says. “We’re creating an experience that’s centered around golf, but the experience is really about food and beverage, live music and people coming together to have a good time.”

PGA Vice President Suzy Whaley (top pic, right) swings away at a recent PGA event at Topgolf Charlotte. In 2003, Whaley became the first woman since Babe Zaharias in 1945 to qualify for an event on the PGA Tour. The little one taking a cut next to Whaley has the potential to surpass her, we think. Prices at Topgolf range from $25 to $45 an hour, depending on the time of day. Comfortable couches (below right), local beer and highend food await those not on the tee pad.

PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

GOLF

TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF

TOPGOLF CHARLOTTE Sun.-Thur., 9 a.m.-Midnight; Fri., 9 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sat., 8 a.m.-2 a.m. 8024 Savoy Corporate Dr. 704-612-4745. topgolf.com/us/charlotte/.

PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 19

20 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

SPORTS

for that.) Oh, and the putt-putt is nice and cheap. The Par 3? Not so much.

PGA

Where: 10 Barton Creek Dr. When: Mon.-Sun., 9 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Price: $5 (up to $16 for the Par 3) Deets: 704-548-1808; facebook.com/ ParadiseValleyGolf

MR. PUTTY WANTS TO PLAY

MINI GOLF PLUS DRIVING RANGE Leatherman Golf First, take a moment to savor that name, and then — fahgitaboutit. This is not the place to see leatherboys hunched over a pair of frilly balls. Leatherman — named for resident pro Chris Leatherman — has it all: mini golf, a double-decker driving range, putting greens, pro shop, learning center, beer, the works.

Ten local mini golf spots, Par 3s, driving ranges, or combos of the three

BY MARK KEMP

S

Where: 5845 S. Tryon St. When: Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.; Sat., 9 a.m.

- 9:30 p.m.; Sun., 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Price: $6-$8 (up to $15 for a bunch of balls at the range) Deets: 704-527-1123; leathermangolf.com

O YOU HAVEN’T gottten

enough golf even after a full day of PGA madness under the hot sun (or hot rain, depending on the weather) at Quail Hollow. Want to spend your evenings in Charlotte doing golf-related stuff, too? How about taking the kids out to the mini golf links?

Or, take an afternoon off from the big event to practice your driving, or get nine holes of Par 3 in. Here are 10 options in the general vicinity if you just must have more.

MINI GOLF (AKA, PUTT-PUTT) Purple Planet 3-D Mini Golf You’ve been outdoors all day long and you’re dehydrated. A little buzzed from the booze.

You’re tired of trying to follow the tiny ball in that sea of green grass and blue (or grey) sky. You need some psychedelics. No, we’re not talking about illicit drugs, we’re talking climate-controlled, glow-in-the-dark, outerspace-themed mini golf in an old refurbished mill building in Belmont. Now, if you want to take illicit psychedelics before you get there, we won’t judge you. Just be careful.

Where: 6325 Wilkinson Blvd., Belmont When: Fri., 4 p.m.–11 p.m.; Sat., 1 p.m.–11 p.m.; Sun., 1 p.m.–7 p.m.; closed all other times.

Price: $8-$10 Deets: 704-277-2459; purpleplanetminigolf.com Lunar Mini Golf Maybe you feel more comfortable doing the glow-in-the-dark thing in a mall. (Hey, we’re not judging.) Lunar Mini Golf’s web page isn’t as good as Purple Planet’s, and we haven’t actually been there, so you’re on your own here. But it’s the same set-up: lots of blacklights and stuff that glows in the dark.

Lunar gets up and running earlier than Purple Planet, so go on — get outta that hotel.

Where: Eastridge Mall, 246 New Hope Rd., Gastonia When: Fri. 3 p.m.-9 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.;

PHOTO COURTESY OF QUEENS LANDING

Sun., noon - 6 p.m.; closed all other times.

Price: $6-$9 Deets: 704-277-2459; purpleplanetminigolf.com LKN Mini Golf If you’re more of a laid-back, Jimmy Buffett type of person who prefers that your mini golf experience not be like a Pink Floyd concert, there’s LKN, one of those confusing three-letter hipster names that just means Lake Norman.

You’ll be up there where folks ride boats, fish and sing “Margaritaville” out of tune, but don’t get distracted — you’re there for the putt-putt.

Kip and Kari Zent founded LKN one day after moving to Lake Norman and realizing there weren’t any decent mini golf joints nearby.

Where: 18639 Statesville Rd, Cornelius When: Mon.-Sun. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Price: $6.50-$12 Deets: 704-892-9800; lknminigolf.com Queens Landing What Kip and Kari Zent apparently didn’t know when they moved to Lake Norman is that, just up the lake, in Mooresville, is Queens Landing.

Its kick-ass mini golf course has caves, waterfalls and a giant sandcastle. And folks up there are singing the same Jimmy Buffett song, for cheap. They have a bunch more stuff at Queens Landing, too, but let’s not get distracted. This is about hitting little golf balls.

Where: 1459 River Hwy, Mooresville When: Mon.-Thurs., 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Price: $4-$6 Deets: 704-663-BOAT; queenslanding.com

Trails Dynasty Miniature Closer to Quail Hollow is Trails Dynasty, a mini golf course and ice creamery in tiny Indian Trail.

They had us at ice cream.

Where: 2228 Younts Rd., Indian Trail When: Mon.-Thurs., 10 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 12 a.m.-9 p.m.

Price: $6-$8 Deets: 704-893-0093; trailsdynasty.com Mr. Putty’s Fun Park Two years ago, Mr. Lionel Westley Putty was a neighbor of Santa Claus when he relocated to the northernmost part of South Carolina from the land of Putt-A-Zerus in the North Pole.

In Tega Cay, about a half-hour south of Quail Hollow, Mr. Putty built his Fun Park and made up this silly story for folks like us to repeat in our newspapers and on our websites. Seriously, though: It may be in S.C., but it’s one of the closer mini-golf courses to the PGA tournament.

Where: 2333 Dam Rd, Tega Cay, S.C. When: Sun.-Thurs., 10 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-11 p.m.

Price: $8.50-$17 Deets: 844-677-8889; mrputtys.com

MINI GOLF PLUS PAR 3 Paradise Valley You know they’re serious about their mini golf when they call it miniature golf, and Paradise Valley is damn serious. Not only can you putz around the rather challenging putt-putt course — a replica of a 19th century Mecklenburg County gold mining camp — but you also can play a round of Par 3. (But book your tee time

PAR 3 Sunset Hills This public golf course prides itself on offering two easy courses for beginners, one of which is this 9-hole Par 3. If you’re pressed for time and just want to tee off, chip it up onto the green and putt for nine holes, this is your spot. This ain’t country club golf, though. Don’t expect a challenge. Or any frills. At all.

Where: 800 Radio Rd. When: Mon.-Sun., 6:30 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Price: $9.25-$11.75 Deets: 704-399-0980; charlottepublicgolf.com/ sunset_hills_course

DRIVING RANGE Westwood Driving Range You could drive out into the country with a bucket full of old, crapped-out balls and smack balls out into the wild blue yonder. Or, you could go to Westwood, where the grass is brown and the skies may or may not be blue. You can only drive during weekday business hours, though, and it’ll cost you. We’re not sure exactly how much it’ll cost you, because Westwood’s prices aren’t on the Facebook page and the fellow who answered the phone wasn’t sure. You might try to to give ’em a shout yourself, if you want to.

Whatever you do, drive at your own risk. Or, better yet, head out into the country with that bucket of old, crapped-out balls.

Where: 5604 Beatties Ford Rd. When: Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Price: $??

Deets: 704-399-0980; odarcy.com.com/ sunset_hills_course CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 21

SPORTS

PGA

WAIT ’TIL YOU SEE MY DISC A guide to the five best disc golf courses for the ball golf crowd

BY RYAN PITKIN

F

OR MANY PGA FANS, the sport of disc golf remains in a class with ultimate (frisbee) as a pastime only for tree hugger hippies with nothing better to do than tromp through the woods tossing a hard disc into baskets and smoking pot between holes.

But disc golf’s popularity has been growing throughout the country, especially in the greater Charlotte area, which we dubbed “the Mecca of Disc Golf” in our May 5, 2016, cover story.

Disc golf courses are built into a more natural setting than the cleared terrain of a regular golf course; the atmosphere is more laid back than the smug country clubs of Caddyshack fame; and most importantly, it’s far less expensive. Discs cost around $20 each and most courses in Charlotte are open to the public and free to play.

From the private Bracket’s Bluff course in Davidson to the Winthrop Gold Course — the site of the annual U.S. Disc Golf Championship — there are top-notch courses to play all around and just outside of Charlotte city limits.

However, we’ve decided to highlight five of the best courses from within the Queen City proper for you to try if you’re looking to let go of your balls for a day and get out in nature for your golfing fix.

PLANTATION RUINS AT WINGET Thomas McAlister Winget Park 12235 Winget Road One of a handful of high-quality courses built for the PDGA Disc Golf World Championships, held in Charlotte in 2012, the Ruins are one of the city’s coolest courses, mainly because it’s kind of creepy. The park runs up against the ruins of an old plantation, which can be distracting for folks who want to go off and explore the foundation and stillstanding chimney of a home some historically horrible person probably once lived in.

Stay focused, though, because although this course is relatively short — it’s just 4,751 feet long — it’s technical. Lots of tight turns through heavily wooded fairways makes for a tough trip through the course, which also throws a few hills at you when you’re finally out in the open.

Play with finesse and don’t try to force 22 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY ANDY GOH

too much and you should be in line for a few birdies, as there are a few Par 4 holes that could arguably exist as tough Par 3s. Avoid the course if it’s rained recently, but otherwise, enjoy this Steele Creek gem and keep an eye out for the Blair Witch while you traverse it.

RENAISSANCE GOLD Renaissance Park 1200 W. Tyvola Road Called a “monster of a course” by the popular DGCourseReview.com, Renaissance Gold is one of the tougher courses you’ll find in the country, let alone Charlotte. Designed and built by local legend Stan McDaniel, the course quickly throws you into the grinder, with Hole 2 sitting atop a manmade cliff, overlooking a valley of shrubbery that you don’t want to have to climb down into to look for a disc.

You’ll need all your discs for this course, as you’ll be throwing right, left, uphill and down, and you’ll be in and out of the woods all day. Just pray you come home with all the discs you came with.

At 9,407 feet, Renaissance Gold nearly doubles the length of its southwest Charlotte neighbor, Plantation Ruins at Winget, so planning to play just one round is usually the safest bet. However, the recent addition of RenSke, a much shorter, less stressful course in a different part of the same park, makes for a fun warm up that can help you build up confidence before taking a run at the absolute son of a bitch that is Renny Gold.

All in all, we don’t mean to scare you off.

Renny is hard as hell, but it’s as fun as any option you’ll have in Charlotte — or anywhere.

HORNETS NEST DISC GOLF COURSE Hornets Nest Park 6301 Beatties Ford Road

Named after the infamous statement from British General Cornwallis, in which he called Charlotte “a hornet’s nest of rebellion” during the Revolutionary War, this course has been around for years. But now, a newly refurbished Hornet’s Nest is testing the patience of generals of the disc golf course, as the iconic course was recently reopened with a brand new layout.

The course’s new look includes a true island green on Hole 2, but hold your horses on that one, it’s only open for approved tournaments.

The first half of the course includes a number of wide-open holes that give you the freedom to bomb one out there, just don’t end up in the outfield of one of the nearby baseball fields and please don’t hit anyone barbecuing at one of the surrounding shelters (I’ve done both).

Players of all skill levels can enjoy this course, as there are tee pads for the pros and the amateurs — as with most area courses. The difference between the two here is between a 5,600-foot course and 9,200 feet, so step up and choose your challenge.

THE SCRAPYARD Idlewild Park 10512 Idlewild Road Named for the efforts of former Charlotte Disc Golf Club president Ralph Vickers, who raised the money to build it by accepting donations of scrap metal, there’s a manmade pond about halfway through the course that at this point could be called a scrapyard of longmissing discs. Holes 8 and 9 are water carry

holes, meaning you’re forced to throw over the pond. The short nature of the holes — especially 8 — mean relatively good players shouldn’t have to worry about getting wet, but you’ll need a steady hand, as just looking out over that murky water can be intimidating if you’re holding one of your favorite discs.

As far as the rest of the course goes, it’s a tough traipse through heavy woods, with the water holes being the only open holes of the 18. Set aside a couple hours to make your way through this one.

EASTWAY DISC GOLF COURSE Eastway Park 423 Eastway Drive This park is similar to Plantation Ruins in that it was built for the 2012 Worlds, it has a nice mix of open holes to wooded holes and is home to a hole that runs right over the foundation of an old — if categorically less creepy — home.

There’s a string of holes starting at 7 that runs alongside the entrance road to the park, and almost all of them give you a great chance to really bomb out some of your drivers. Before and after that, however, the course offers a great mixture of long and short holes in the woods, including a fun Hole 2 that has players throwing off a major drop down to a basket propped precariously on a hill below.

The course not only offers a good mix of open to wooded, but also of civilization to seclusion.

Some holes run up against neighborhoods, busy train tracks or the busier Eastway Drive, while others place you in the woods without a sign of the outside world.

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 23

PHOTO COURTESY OF DISCOVERY PLACE

FREEDOM PARK What: Take a hike Where: 1900 East Boulevard, between Dilworth and Myers Park How: “Golf is a good walk spoiled,” goes the well-known quip. So skip the golf and stroll through this 98-acre park. Hiking trails ring a seven-acre lake and lead to the Discovery Place Nature Museum. Instead of following star golfers around the course, follow real stars as they course across the night sky at the museum’s Charlotte A. Kelly Planetarium.

Deets: nature.discoveryplace.org

GRAPE AND AGAVE What: Get drunk in a swank tequila and wine bar Where: 11318 North Community House Rd. How: After a long day of slaying the courses, unwind with some well-deserved booze.

Brimming with comfy leather couches, a sweet little backyard and a sultry lounge space, this is a great spot to lay down your clubs.

Deets: 980-585-2584; grapeandagave.com PHOTO BY DANA VINDIGNI

BAKU What: Eat stylish Japanese food, but don’t get caught wearing sweatpants.

Where: 4515 Sharon Rd. How: Throw on your designer jeans and enjoy some hip Asian cuisine. This boutique restaurant offers tapas-styled small plates, sexy cocktails and a chic, fun atmosphere, for when you’re done with the PGA for the day.

Deets: 704-817-7173; baku-resturant.com

Charlotte A. Kelly Planetarium

THE SALT PAD

REGAL BALLANTYNE VILLAGE THEATER What: Catch an art flick Where: 14815 Ballantyne Village Way How: Even the slowest-moving art film is faster-paced than a round of golf. Don’t take our word for it. Compare the two. Quit following Phil Mickelson around Quail Hollow and duck into the Regal Ballantyne Village Theater. No ordinary multiplex, the RBVT specializes in indie and artsy flicks that cinema chains usually skip — like Maudie, playing now.

You can even get wine, beer or sushi while you read the subtitles. Well, not in Maudie. It’s in English.

Deets: ballantynevillage.com

What: Breathe easy, snort salt Where: 1600 East Woodlawn Rd., Ste. 310 How: An afternoon on the links could drive anyone to huffing bath salts, but that’s not what we’re talking about. The Salt Pad in South Charlotte features salt therapy, also called halotherapy. Breathing salt air reduces respiratory inflammation and strengthens the immune system by increasing negative ions.

Who knew? Well, the ancient Greeks, for one, and the first salt therapy resort was opened in a Polish salt mine in 1839.

Deets: thesaltpad.com

PHOTO BY DANA VINDIGNI

BLACKLION What: You’re here with a friend who likes golf but you don’t. Get a jump on your holiday shopping!

Where: 10635 Park Rd. How: Just go. Seriously, where else are you going to find hand-crafted, “made in Amurica” Elvis ornaments for your “Jungle Room” tree?

Deets: 704-541-1148; www.blacklion.com

? y a d e h t r o f e n Do s

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or f s e i it v i t w c o l A l o & il H ts a u u o g Q Han near

24 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

CALVARY CHURCH What: Find God - if you can!

Where: 5801 Pineville-Matthews Road How: The gospel of prosperity is alive and kicking in this tiara-shaped megachurch that dwarfs the countryside like Castle Black in Game of Thrones. Finding God here is like Where’s Waldo. Is He in the lavish worship service, or in the lawsuit that alleges that the church discriminates against children with disabilities? You know what they say: The devil’s in the details.

Deets: calvarychurch.com

Sat. Aug 12th at 8pm TICKETS $7 in advance $9 at the door

OTCimprov.com/tac INFO: 704-618-4203

In Conjunction with Fish Market at Baxter Village Three’s A Crowd presents The back to school improv show

SHOW LOCATION: Fort Mill Community Playhouse 220 Main St. Fort Mill, SC 29715

Sleep your way to the top: How to develop leadership and team building skills and not even know you are doing it.

Leaders today need business improv tools to help develop exceptional quick thinking skills, the ability to actively listen, adaptability to a myriad of changes without stressing out, and most importantly, a sense of humor that encourages people to be creative, takes risks, and nurture customer and coworker relationships. And all of this is done by nurturing right-brain thinking and enhancing the neuroplasticity of the brain.

Neuroplasticity and OTC improv: The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections aided by improvisation .

1. By strengthening the neural connections to the right side of the brain through improvisation, one’s dreams and eureka moments are enhanced helping with innovation, creativity and divergent thinking.

2. Once the business improv exercises have been practiced for a few weeks, the temporary neural connections become stronger and more permanent, making skills such as quick thinking, humor, and empathy much easier to utilize.

3. Practicing business improvisation helps executives to make decisions more eeffectively, and confidence is gained through repeated improvisational exercises.

Companies are beginning to understand that mental health is just as important as the physical health of their employees.

Business Improv Testimonials

"The session was the best 1-hour workplace breakout-style training session I’ve ever experienced".

- JasonHassing, Manager IT, Compass Group

"I have had several folks tell me that was the best thing we have ever done with this group”.

- Dr. Chuck Epps, Superintendent at Fort Mill Schools "We are still talking about your program a year later".

- Jody Christenson, WIM Early Talent Program Coordinator, Wells Fargo Business improv clients: Red Ventures, Wells Fargo, Daimler Trucks, Ingersoll-Rand, Fox 46 News, Elevation Church, Novant Health, Palliative and Hospice, KPMG, Ford Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Leadership Charlotte, Bank of America Lowes Corporation, Gulfstream Aerospace, Compass Group, TIAA-CREF, Accenture Paylocity, North Highland Consulting, Charlotte Mecklenburg School System, Contact: Hayes Group International, President: Paul Marks Ahold Delhaize, Duke Energy, Phone: (704)-618-4203 and numerous others.

Website: www.OTCimprov.com Email: OTCimprov@aol.com CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 25

Offering a Chef inspired menu with locally sourced ingredients.

Hand-Crafted Cocktails

Extensive Wine List

The Premier Patio in South Charlotte

*Reservations accepted and recommended

Address-2839 Selwyn Ave 28209 Phone Number-(704)372-1424 nolenkitchenrestaurant.com

26 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

Charlotte’s source for affordable original artwork Check out art for sale at alexanderhoodart.com @alexanderhoodart

mini golfaN more d

1. LEATHERMAN GOLF LEARNING CENTER

7. WESTWOOD DRIVING RANGE

5845 South Tryon St., Charlotte

5604 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte

2. PURPLE PLANET 3-D MINI GOLF

8. TRAILS DYNASTY

6325 Wilkinson Blvd., Belmont

2228 Younts Rd. Indian Trail

3.LUNAR MINI GOLF

9. PARADISE VALLEY

Eastridge Mall, 246 New Hope Rd., Gastonia

110 Barton Creek Dr., Charlotte

4.LKN MINI GOLF

10. SUNSET HILLS

18639 Statesville Rd, Cornelius

800 Radio Road, Charlotte

5. QUEENS LANDING 1459 River Hwy, Mooresville

6. MR. PUTTY’S FUN PARK 2333 Dam Rd., Tega Cay, South Carolina

non golf treats 1.FREEDOM PARK 1900 East Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28203

2. REGAL BALLANTYNE VILLAGE THEATER 14825 Ballantyne Village Way Suite 240-19 Charlotte, NC 28277

3.THE SALT PAD 1600 E Woodlawn Rd #310, Charlotte, NC 28209

4. GRAPE AND AGAVE 1318 North Community House Rd. Charlotte, NC 28277

5.BLACKLION 10635 Park Rd. Charlotte, NC 28210

6.BAKU 4515 Sharon Rd. Charlotte, NC 28211

disc golf 1.TOP GOLF 8024 Savoy Corporate Dr., Charlotte, NC 28273

2. HORNETS NEST PARK 6301 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte, NC 28216

3.RENAISSANCE PARK 1200 W Tyvola Rd, Charlotte, NC 28217

4.IDLEWILD 10512 Idlewild Rd, Matthews, NC 28105

5. EASTWAY 423 Eastway Dr, Charlotte, NC 28205

6. THOMAS MCALISTER WINGET PARK 12025 Winget Rd, Charlotte, NC 28278

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 27

mini golfaN more d

1. LEATHERMAN GOLF LEARNING CENTER

7. WESTWOOD DRIVING RANGE

5845 South Tryon St., Charlotte

5604 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte

2. PURPLE PLANET 3-D MINI GOLF

8. TRAILS DYNASTY

6325 Wilkinson Blvd., Belmont

2228 Younts Rd. Indian Trail

3.LUNAR MINI GOLF

9. PARADISE VALLEY

Eastridge Mall, 246 New Hope Rd., Gastonia

110 Barton Creek Dr., Charlotte

4.LKN MINI GOLF

10. SUNSET HILLS

18639 Statesville Rd, Cornelius

800 Radio Road, Charlotte

5. QUEENS LANDING 1459 River Hwy, Mooresville

6. MR. PUTTY’S FUN PARK 2333 Dam Rd., Tega Cay, South Carolina

non golf treats 1.FREEDOM PARK 1900 East Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28203

2. REGAL BALLANTYNE VILLAGE THEATER 14825 Ballantyne Village Way Suite 240-19 Charlotte, NC 28277

3.THE SALT PAD 1600 E Woodlawn Rd #310, Charlotte, NC 28209

4. GRAPE AND AGAVE 1318 North Community House Rd. Charlotte, NC 28277

5.BLACKLION 10635 Park Rd. Charlotte, NC 28210

6.BAKU 4515 Sharon Rd. Charlotte, NC 28211

disc golf 1.TOP GOLF 8024 Savoy Corporate Dr., Charlotte, NC 28273

2. HORNETS NEST PARK 6301 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte, NC 28216

3.RENAISSANCE PARK 1200 W Tyvola Rd, Charlotte, NC 28217

4.IDLEWILD 10512 Idlewild Rd, Matthews, NC 28105

5. EASTWAY 423 Eastway Dr, Charlotte, NC 28205

6. THOMAS MCALISTER WINGET PARK 12025 Winget Rd, Charlotte, NC 28278

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 27

MUSIC

FEATURE

LIPS DON’T LIE JaggerMouth returns with a more mature second album — provided they can pull it off on time

BY JEFF TAYLOR

I

NSIDE AN unassuming twostory, ’70s-style brick house buried away in an east Charlotte residential neighborhood, where you’d more likely find some boring domestic scene playing out, the members of JaggerMouth are creating controlled chaos.

Within seconds of entering, I am handed a light beer, which comes with an explanation. “It keeps us from getting too drunk,” says 28-year-old guitarist Nic Pugh.

The house doubles as the home of drummer Jake Porter, also 28, who’s in the process of building a new studio at the same time the band is recording its latest set of songs, The Album Formerly Known as Record.

It’s slated to drop Aug. 11, the same day JaggerMouth is scheduled to do a recordrelease show at the Visulite Theatre.

Right now, though, the band members are worried they may not pull it off on time.

Their self-imposed deadline seemed simple enough to meet back in March. “Six months away? Yeah, we can totally do that,” Porter says, recalling their springtime optimism.

“And now we’re pulling our hair out,” Pugh interjects, as the clock ticks away.

Lead singer Matt Wheeler is the only member not present at the moment. He’s sitting behind closed doors, laying down a vocal track. Porter, Pugh and the other members — guitarist Joe Boyland, 24, and bassist TJ Banks, 29 — point me to a nearby smoking room, where we light up and chat about JaggerMouth’s album-in-progress.

When I point out that the band seems to have been working hard, Pugh laughs.

“That’s a nice way of saying, ‘You all look like shit,’” he says.

IT’S BEEN two years since JaggerMouth released its debut longplayer Synthetic Me, a straight-ahead rock album that formally introduced the band to the Charlotte musical landscape and solidified its reputation as one of the Queen City’s premiere party bands. If you’ve seen JaggerMouth perform live, you already know the group’s shows are equal parts music and style.

But their reputation for carefree debauchery is more than just a stage persona.

Until recently, Pugh and Banks shared a rental house with a revolving 28 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

JaggerMouth: Nic Pugh (from left), TJ Banks, Matt Wheeler, Jake Porter, Joe Boyland. cast of roommates — accurately described as “characters.” They hosted so many gettogethers that they eventually had to warn people not to walk barefoot on the the grass, due to the many broken bottles and shards of glass embedded in the dirt throughout the yard. After one too many break-ins at the house, which sat on the outskirts of Plaza Midwood, the band moved out.

But while the party seems to have settled down a bit, the debauchery continues to provide worthwhile fodder for new JaggerMouth material. One track on the new album tells the true tale of Pugh and Banks’ 4 a.m. journey to Brooklyn, New York, on a whim, with no money and no solid plan for what to do when they got there. The trip caused JaggerMouth to miss a show after Pugh got a severe eye infection. As Banks tells it, Pugh had touched the rails inside a subway train and then rubbed his eye, confirming the old adage, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country of out of the boy.”

And then there’s the title track, which not only rocks out like earlier JaggerMouth, but also sends up the band’s rowdy image. It essentially functions as an ode to fucking up in public, appropriate for a band that kicked out its former bass player after he drunkenly tried to start a fight in the middle of a show at Snug Harbor.

That incident had the band members to a security guard simulteneously telling the guy he was no longer welcome on the premises or in the band.

In the lyrics to the first single, “Stillwater,” JaggerMouth takes the piss out of itself by acknowledging its reputation. “My idiot life/ Your entertainment,” Wheeler sings, and then later, “Ask me how I’ve been/As I sit in the corner/Feeling like a mess/Looking like Rocky Horror.” That bit of clouded sunshine is the album’s party anthem. Things only grow darker from there.

“We tell a lot more stories on this record than the last one,” says Pugh, who writes the lyrics. The guitarist is peeling the label off his beer bottle as he puts the songs in context.

“These were all personal events; things that have happened either to me or my family,” he continues. “One’s about my house burning down when I was a kid. Another is about my dad’s best friend dying in a car wreck — basically dying in his arms. And then there are a couple of songs about mental health that we kind of made up, but that have segments of our own thing in there.

“I tried to write them in a way that [makes them] accessible to anyone who hears it,” Pugh hastens to add.

Wheeler is the one who has to take those dark topics and bring them to life in his vocal delivery. I ask if that presents a challenge for him? No, he tells me.

The more serious material on this album, Wheeler explains, is “more in my realm than anything else we’ve done. I like to think of it as acting. I get a role and I become that role. You can give me anything. I’ll be fucking British if I have to be.”

When I ask if Pugh provided the singer

ALL PHOTOS BY BRIDGETTE AIKENS

with the backstories to the songs, Wheeler says it wasn’t necessary, as he was already familiar with the stories. “Me and Nic have known each other for like 12 years, so most of the stuff I knew already,” Wheeler says. “We’ll just hang out, talk about stuff, get real about it, you know? ’Cause we’re buddies” — he laughs — “even though I hate him.”

“God, I hate you too,” Pugh says, also laughing.

WHEELER AND PUGH met on the regional

band circuit when they were 16-year-old high school students. Wheeler was a student at West Caldwell High in Lenoir, and Pugh attended Statesville Christian, about an hour north of Charlotte.

“I was a faggot in Christian school,” Pugh jokes of the school, where he says it was implied that LGBTQ students had to “stay closeted or you’re kicked out and have to join the military.” Both Pugh and Wheeler dabbled in music projects as teens, but no bands of note.

After graduating high school in 2007 and briefly studying English at UNCC, Pugh headed out to the more culturally inclusive Portland, Oregon, where he joined the hardcore band Ghosts & Monsters. But he longed to be among close friends and family, and relocated back to Charlotte in 2012. He met Banks through an ad the latter had placed looking for a singer for his band Portlit Cove.

They met Joe Boyland while touring with his Virginia-based band Friends of Friends.

Wheeler, Pugh, Boyland (then on bass),

JAGGERMOUTH (W/ MODERN PRIMITIVES, MORE) 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 11. $5 (under 21, $10). Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave. 704-358-9200. visulite.com

The Album Formerly Known as Record. and an earlier drummer eventually formed JaggerMouth without TJ Banks. But when Boyland returned to Virginia to finish his degree in physics at Radford University, the band replaced him with the bassist that started the fight at Snug Harbor. By then, Porter had come aboard as the drummer.

“TJ acquired the part of bassist after the replacement for Joe was kicked out of the band on stage,” Porter explains. “TJ just happened to be standing outside at the time the show ended and we asked him to be the new bassist.”

Boyland relocated back to Charlotte full time a year ago.

Through all the volatile lineup changes, JaggerMouth has maintained a high level of

musicianship, and the new album only finds the band’s talent expanding.

The lyrical content isn’t the only thing that’s changed for JaggerMouth; the music on the new album is more intricate and intense than it was on Synthetic Me or on Keep It Contagious, the 2013 EP that preceded it.

“It’s still the JaggerMouth sound, but there are definitely smoother aspects to these songs,” Banks says. “It’s not necessarily 100-percent party, party, party.”

Assuming JaggerMouth gets the thing finished, The Album Formerly Known as Record may be one of the finest releases the Charlotte music scene has seen in recent memory.

And if the band doesn’t beat the clock?

“There are like four backup plans,” Porter says. “One of them is: No one answers their phone.”

Our money is on the guys pulling it off in a photo finish.

We would hate to have to start asking, Whatever happened to The Band Formerly Known as JaggerMouth?

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

Pugh and Wheeler square off onstage.

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 29

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD

AUGUST 10 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH John Alexander Jazz Trio (Blue Restaurant & Bar)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Le Bang (Snug Harbor)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Wyclef Jean, Jazzy Amra (Neighborhood Theatre)

POP/ROCK Alive After 5 featuring Straight Fire (Rooftop 210) Carmen Tate (Eddie’s Seafood & Raw Bar, Mooresville) Ancient Cities (U.S. National Whitewater Center, Charlotte) The Damned Diamonds, Tongues of Fire, Rothschild, Blu House (Milestone, Charlotte) Hunters Travisty (Comet Grill, Charlotte) Jon & Lev (Tin Roof, Charlotte) Karaoke with DJ ShayNanigans (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern, Charlotte) Lisa DeNovo (RiRa Irish Pub, Charlotte) The Major Rager: Umphrey’s McGee, Moon Taxi (Symphony Park at SouthPark Mall) Ronstadt Brothers (The Evening Muse, Charlotte) Throwback Thursdays: 80s and 90s Music (Morehead Street Tavern, Charlotte)

Dog Party, Sneeze Attack, Dollar Signs (The Evening Muse) Francisco Vidal (Tin Roof) Jaggermouth, Iamdynamite, Modern Primitives, Indighost (Visulite Theatre) Jason Moss, AC & The Heat, Jim Garrett (Petra’s) The Loose Lugnits, Bill Noonan Band, Drunken Pintos, Bart Lattimore (Neighborhood Theatre) Mary Chapin Carpenter, Emily Barker (Knight Theater) Moses Jones Duo (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville) Nemesis, Sadistic Ritual, Suppressive Fire, KRVSADE (Milestone) On the Border - Eagles Tribute (The Fillmore) Sounds on the Square (Spirit Square) Thirsty Horses (RiRa Irish Pub) Weedeater Delux (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern)

AUGUST 12 COUNTRY/FOLK Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Paul Thorn Band (Neighborhood Theatre)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ RWonz (RiRa Irish Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Jazzy Fridays (Freshwaters Restaurant) Buff Dillard (Morehead Street Tavern)

Charlotte Funk Fest: Erykah Badu, Kenny Babyface Edmonds, Jagged Edge, Goodie Mob, Doug E. Fresh, Bobby Brown (PNC Music Pavilion) Dreams Deferred...Dreams Fulfilled: Ed Cook, Don eL, JD Webb, Jai Gibson (Freedom Factory @ Seeds) Natural Wonder - The Nations only Stevie Wonder Tribute Experience (Visulite Theatre)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL

POP/ROCK

AUGUST 11 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH

Steven Engler Band (Blue Restaurant & Bar)

COUNTRY/FOLK Live on the Green (First Ward Park) Willie Parlier (Keg & Cue) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Method (RiRa Irish Pub) Player Made : An Ode To Southern Rap Of All Eras (Snug Harbor)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Deniro Farrar, Well$ (The Rabbit Hole) DRE-Z: A Tribute to the Music of Dr. Dre & Jay Z (The Underground)

POP/ROCK Blakeney Summer Concert Series (Blakeney Shopping Center) Music Box Lunch (Romare Bearden Park) Songwriter Showcase ft. Nikki Fellows & Lucas Devore (Studio 13, Cornelius) 30 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

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Bearden Music Series (Romare Bearden Park) Blakeney Summer Concert Series (Blakeney Shopping Center) Bakalao Stars, MoFunGo (The Evening Muse) Branan Murphy, Katmaz (The Evening Muse) The Caroline Keller Band (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Dixie Dust (Sylvia Theatre, York) The Fill Ins, The Stir, Rotten Stitches, The Horribles, The Hooliganz (Milestone) Heart of a Ghost, Birds With Teeth, Sam The Lion (Petra’s) Hillbilly Hobos (Comet Grill) John the Revelator (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Matt Bennett Band (Tin Roof) A Place Both Wonderful and Strange, Joshua Cotterino, True Believer (Snug Harbor) Smash City (RiRa Irish Pub) The Smashed Cardinals (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville)

AUGUST 13 DJ/ELECTRONIC

SOUNDBOARD

Bone Snugs-N-Harmony Karaoke Party (Snug Harbor)

John Mayer (PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte) The Magpie Salute (Neighborhood Theatre, Charlotte) Ol’ Sport, Rebuilder, Choke Up, Faye (Snug Harbor, Charlotte) Songbirds of Summer - A Benefit for The Arts Empowerment Project (The Evening Muse, Charlotte)

POP/ROCK The Australian Pink Floyd Show – The Best Side of the Moon 2017 (Belk Theater) Ballantyne School Of Music & Rock University Presents: Summer Jam 2017 with Rock University Charlotte (Visulite Theatre) Dashboard Confessional, The All-American Rejects, The Maine, The Social Animals (Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre) Flagship, In The Valley Below, Warbly Jets (The Underground) Link Listener Private Acoustic Series: All American Rejects (Tin Roof) Messenger Down, Never I, Harm, Arborlea (Milestone) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill)

AUGUST 14 COUNTRY/FOLK Native Harrow (The Station)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Knocturnal (Snug Harbor) Stone Soul Mic Love (Freedom Factory @ Seeds) #MFGD Open Mic (Apostrophe Lounge)

POP/ROCK Find Your Muse Open Mic with Charles Walker (The Evening Muse) Kerry Brooks (Comet Grill) Locals Live: The Best in Local Live Music & Local Craft Beers (Tin Roof) The Monday Night Allstars (Visulite Theatre) Music Trivia (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Open Mic with Jade Moore (Primal Brewery, Huntersville) Shannon Lee and Thomas Stainkamp Dueling Piano’s Night (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville) Tesla (The Fillmore)

AUGUST 15 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Morehead Tavern)

COUNTRY/FOLK Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill) Open Mic hosted by Jarrid and Allen of Pursey Kerns (The Kilted Buffalo, Huntersville) Tuesday Night Jam w/ The Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

POP/ROCK Music Box Lunch (First Ward Park) The Coma Kids, Placeholder, Minimums, Blame It On Bart (Milestone, Charlotte) HL Ruth Duo (Tin Roof, Charlotte) Jesse Jazz Band Jam (The Evening Muse, Charlotte)

MUSIC

AUGUST 16 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH The Clarence Palmer Trio (Morehead Tavern)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Cyclops Bar: Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor)

COUNTRY/FOLK Open mic w/ Jared Allen (Jack Beagles, Charlotte) Open Mic/Open Jam (Comet Grill, Charlotte)

POP/ROCK Cuzco, The Most, Knowne Ghost, Sam The Lion (Visulite Theatre) Ellis Dyson & The Shambles, Caroilne Keller Band, Moses Jones (Milestone) Karaoke with DJ Pucci Mane (Petra’s) Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor) Parodi Kings (Diamond Restaurant, Charlotte) Pluto For Planet (RiRa Irish Pub) Snug Harbor10 Year Anniversary Celebration Residency: Fat Face Band, Chócala, Bullship, Party Battleship (Snug Harbor) Songwriter Open Mic @ Petra’s (Petra’s) Tahoma, The Brook & the Bluff, Waking April (The Evening Muse) Trivia & Karaoke Wednesdays (Tin Roof) The Young Step (Keg & Cue)

COMING SOON Social Distortion (August 19, The Fillmore) Counting Crows, Matchbox 20 (August 20, PNC Music Pavilion) The Veldt (August 25, Snug Harbor) Ryan Culwell (August 26, U.S. National Whitewater Center) Jim Lauderdale (August 27, Evening Muse) Kendrick Lamar (August 29, Spectrum Center) TKO Faith Healer (August 29, Snug Harbor) Ed Sheeran (September 3, Spectrum Center) Cabinet (September 7, U.S. National Whitewater Center) Apocalyptica (September 8, McGlohon Theater) Bruno Mars (September 14, Spectrum Center) John Prine (September 16, Belk Theater) Dead Cat (September 16, Snug Harbor) Adam Ant (September 22, The Fillmore) Stephane Wrembel (September 22, Evening Muse) Astrea Corp (September 23, Snug Harbor)

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YOUR LISTINGS!

❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

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SATURDAY, AUG 19

1-2-3 NIGHT FEATURING

SCOTT BRANTLEY

TICKETS $10 AT THE DOOR

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

FRIDAY, AUG 25

LUKE PELL

WITH CHRIS

BANDI

TICKETS ON SALE NOW $15

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

SATURDAY, AUG 26

FRANK FOSTER LIMITED ADVANCE $10 ALL OTHERS $12

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

THURSDAY, AUG 31

LAUREN ALAINA FREE CONCERT

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

SATURDAY, SEPT 16

CHASE RICE

LIMITED ADVANCE $22 ALL OTHERS $25

Natural Wonder 8/11 JAGGERMOUTH The8/12 Nations only Stevie Wonder Tribute Experience 8/13 BALLANTYNE 8/29 SCHOOL OF MUSIC 9/8 WILL HOGE 9/6 BIRDTALKER 9/20 DEER TICK 9/17 ANDREW COMBS + LINDI ORTEGA RUSS 10/5 LITHE QUID TEST 10/19 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER 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 mkemp@clclt.com or fax it to 704-5228088. We need the date, venue, band name and contact name and number.

The deadline is each Wednesday, one week before publication.

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SATURDAY,SEPT 23

MUSCADINE BLOODLINE WITH SPECIAL GUEST

BRANDON RAY

LIMITED ADVANCE $12 ALL OTHERS $15

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

SATURDAY, OCT 14

JON PARDI

MIDLAND RUNAWAY JUNE

WITH AND LIMITED ADVANCE $20 ALL OTHERS $25

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FRIDAY, OCT 20

COREY SMITH

LIMITED ADVANCE $20 ALL OTHERS $25

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

WILD 1-2-3 NIGHTS AUGUST 11, 19 & 25

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

ON SALE AT COYOTE JOES AND COYOTE-JOES.COM COYOTE JOE’S : 4621 WILKINSON BLVD

704-399-4946

❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈ ❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

with hosts: Mark Kemp and RYan Pitkin visit clclt.com for more info

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 31

ARTS

FEATURE

I’LL FLY AWAY

In ‘Things With Wings,’ Bree Stallings ponders conversations not allowed in polite company

BY KIA O. MOORE

“We Return to the Earth”

B

REE STALLINGS’ latest visual conversation started with a poem she wrote about her family.

“The last couple of lines of the poem lead up to [the words], ‘We are things with wings,’” Stallings says. “The majority of the poem is just talking about growing older and understanding generational trauma between women. What has happened to my grandmother, what has happened to my mother, has affected me.”

Stallings, 26, describes herself as a visual literacy artist who focuses on teaching the healing power of artistic expression while exploring conversations that are often hushed quickly when someone chooses to speak out about them. One such conversation Stallings explores in her new exhibit, “Things With Wings,” is woman-on-woman violence created by patriarchal systems.

On Saturday, August 12, the Charlottebased multi-media artist, illustrator, muralist, writer and activist will unveil her new paintings, which are packed with symbolism and visual idioms that allude to those hushed topics, at Haylo Healing Art Lounge in NoDa. According to Haylo owner Hayley Moran, Stallings’ work fits in with the tattoo shop and art lounge’s mission, which Moran says is “to use our voices in a variety of ways.”

MAKING ART has been a multi-generational process for Stallings. Her grandfather, Jack Sexton, is a potter who has shown and sold his work across North Carolina, and even internationally, through JS Pottery in Gaston County. Her mother, Robin Sexton Stallings, is a graphic artist who studied at Central Piedmont Community College.

Stallings and her mother both work in

Bree Stallings at work. studios at C3Lab in South End, and C3’s Maria Nocik knows the two well. “Creativity runs in their family,” Nocik says. “It’s lovely to see the love, support and energy they show each other in their studios.” The two will be showing their work together as part of a C3 studio artists group show in October.

Stallings grew up “submerged” in art since the moment her mom taught her how to paint and draw, but she went even deeper when she pursued a degree in studio art and creative writing at Queens University.

After graduating in 2013, Stallings made her way into community work, using art as her medium.

Today, she teaches at Community School of the Arts and Behailu Academy, where she uses art to help in the healing process of domestic violence survivors, refugee children, drug addicts and people on the autism spectrum.

Art used as a healing agent is the focus of her “Things with Wings” exhibit at Haylo.

Stallings says the message in the poem that

“If Only For A Moment, I Choose To Feel The Beauty And Not The Violence” inspired the collection could not be fully expressed through the literary arts, so she took it to the easel to bring the conversation to life.

“I have done work like this before — like write something and then paint it, or the other way around,” she says. “I do this to try to convey the same message in a couple different mediums, because I think it carries almost a like a second language that may pick up something else.”

The paintings that resulted from the poem became a visual tale of women navigating patriarchy — sometimes gracefully, sometimes violently. “We live in a time where just being in a man’s world makes it really difficult, because we have these standards that are impressed upon us,” Stallings says. “I think women have a

32 | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

couple of reactions to these forced standards: We adopt society’s standards, or we are mean to ourselves and other women. We don’t know how to navigate between [the two], and it is not really acceptable to talk about it.”

One of Stallings’ favorite pieces in the exhibit is a painting entitled “If Only for a Moment I Choose to Feel the Beauty and Not the Violence.” It pictures a woman resting on a rock, releasing her grip on a bloody knife as a moth lands on her shoulder. In the background is a flooded town.

Stallings says the piece speaks to the idea of making choices. “We can make the choice just not to engage,” she says. “We don’t know how to end the violent speak, but we do know how to take a second to just not feel.”

She uses imagery of insects and winged animals throughout the exhibit. “I have always painted and drawn moths and birds,” Stallings says. “With the moth, there is this idea that we return to light and are drawn to that light.”

While the throughline of “Things With Wings” may be imagery of winged creatures, Stallings also pushes the winged concept beyond that in some of the pieces. “For a while I was trying to get metaphorical and think of other things with wings — like hospital wings, wings of a mansion, wings of a plane, and concepts like that.”

Stallings has long used her art as a tool in her community activism. She recently partnered with the Mecklenburg County Health Department and students at Behailu to do three large-scale public murals in designated “food deserts” around Charlotte to put a spotlight on the problem of food insecurity. She’s also used her work to raise awareness on issues ranging from economic mobility to homelessness to environmental concerns.

“There are many artists that depict social, political or economic disparities in their artwork,” C3’s Nocik says, “but Bree’s one of the few that takes that call to action to heart and continually works with underserved communities and kids on a daily basis, which makes her a great role model.”

The overarching idea in “Things With Wings,” Stallings says, is for viewers to come away from the exhibit with the realization that we all are “things with wings.”

“I think people relate to animals. I also think they understand the idioms and symbolism that come along with the animal,” Stallings says. “That helps to translate the metaphor a little better.”

The winged imagery in Stallings’ paintings is not the only symbolism helping to translate her ideas about stepping back

Stallings shows off her work. and thinking before acting. The location she’s chosen to exhibit the work also plays a role in communicating those ideas. Haylo Healing Arts Lounge is a tattoo studio that takes the tattoo experience beyond decorative body art. Workshops in mindfulness, yoga classes, breast cancer fundraisers and areola tattoos for women who have had mastectomies are among the services Haylo provides to the Charlotte community.

“I appreciate and want to show Bree’s art because she uses her art for a purpose,” Moran says. “She creates with a cause.”

Stallings appreciates that Haylo gets what her art is about. “It is warm and there is beautiful art [inside],” she says. “I thought that matched what I was going for, which is this intimate one-on-one experience.”

ARTS

ALL POTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

THINGS WITH WINGS 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12.

Free. Haylo Healing Arts Lounge, 1111 Central Ave. Suite 100. 704-332-3377. haylostudiolounge.com/happening

Stallings has been moving in this space for years, but “Things With Wings” offers everyone their chance to “submerge” into the unspoken, art-driven, healing environment of her world.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

FILM

TOWER HEIST King property loses its value

BY MATT BRUNSON

THE LONG-IN-THE-making movie The

Dark Tower (*1/2 out of four) runs 95 minutes yet is based on the Stephen King book series that ran over the course of eight novels. Such a condensation may not be quite as vexing as attempting to place all of Shakespeare’s texts onto a single Post-it note, but it nevertheless ranks as an exercise in futility.

Despite the material’s links to other King staples, the movie has less in common with the prolific author’s output and more in common with such Young Adult adaptations as the Divergent and Percy Jackson series.

Certainly, there are nods here and there to the King oeuvre (It, 1408, The Shining), but stripped of dramatic heft, the film mainly plays like the YA-sanctioned adventures of a young boy who gets to hang out with a

Matthew McConaughey in The Dark Tower gunslinger and fight a wicked sorcerer. The boy is Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), who suffers from recurring dreams involving an imposing tower. The gunslinger is Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), the last in a long line of peacekeepers sworn to protect the title edifice. And the sorcerer is the Man in Black — no, not Johnny Cash, but a vile being seeking to destroy the Tower and thereby unleash all manner of otherworldly evildoers.

The Man in Black is played by Matthew McConaughey, who seems to have based his performance on the most obnoxious car salesman he’s ever met. McConaughey’s Man in Black isn’t frightening in the least, but he could probably get you a sweet deal on a Lincoln Continental.

The casting of Elba makes more sense than that of his surfer dude co-star, but while he brings the proper degree of gravitas to his role, the thinness of the screenplay means that there’s little depth to his characterization. The entire film suffers from a similar measure of surface sheen. Potentially interesting players come and go, other worlds and dimensions are visited, and characters engage in weighty proclamations like “He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father,” “He has the shine!” and “The gun is good; the penis is evil” (wait, that one’s from Zardoz; never mind). But by barreling through the story at Mach speed, nothing is allowed to marinate and deepen. What’s left, then, is a shallow fantasy in which most of the unimaginative action sequences consist of little more than Roland shooting his pistols at various villains. It may be High Noon in the land of The Dark Tower, but it’s a low ebb for viewers expecting anything of substance.

COURTESY OF COLUMBIA

Miles Eadie / Abstract Artist 704.780.8016 @eadiemiles

www.mileseadieabstractart.com CLCLT.COM | AUG. 10 - AUG. 17, 2017 | 33

Stallings shows off her work. and thinking before acting. The location she’s chosen to exhibit the work also plays a role in communicating those ideas. Haylo Healing Arts Lounge is a tattoo studio that takes the tattoo experience beyond decorative body art. Workshops in mindfulness, yoga classes, breast cancer fundraisers and areola tattoos for women who have had mastectomies are among the services Haylo provides to the Charlotte community.

“I appreciate and want to show Bree’s art because she uses her art for a purpose,” Moran says. “She creates with a cause.”

Stallings appreciates that Haylo gets what her art is about. “It is warm and there is beautiful art [inside],” she says. “I thought that matched what I was going for, which is this intimate one-on-one experience.”

ARTS

ALL POTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

THINGS WITH WINGS 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12.

Free. Haylo Healing Arts Lounge, 1111 Central Ave. Suite 100. 704-332-3377. haylostudiolounge.com/happening

Stallings has been moving in this space for years, but “Things With Wings” offers everyone their chance to “submerge” into the unspoken, art-driven, healing environment of her world.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

FILM

TOWER HEIST King property loses its value

BY MATT BRUNSON

THE LONG-IN-THE-making movie The

Dark Tower (*1/2 out of four) runs 95 minutes yet is based on the Stephen King book series that ran over the course of eight novels. Such a condensation may not be quite as vexing as attempting to place all of Shakespeare’s texts onto a single Post-it note, but it nevertheless ranks as an exercise in futility.

Despite the material’s links to other King staples, the movie has less in common with the prolific author’s output and more in common with such Young Adult adaptations as the Divergent and Percy Jackson series.

Certainly, there are nods here and there to the King oeuvre (It, 1408, The Shining), but stripped of dramatic heft, the film mainly plays like the YA-sanctioned adventures of a young boy who gets to hang out with a

Matthew McConaughey in The Dark Tower gunslinger and fight a wicked sorcerer. The boy is Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), who suffers from recurring dreams involving an imposing tower. The gunslinger is Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), the last in a long line of peacekeepers sworn to protect the title edifice. And the sorcerer is the Man in Black — no, not Johnny Cash, but a vile being seeking to destroy the Tower and thereby unleash all manner of otherworldly evildoers.

The Man in Black is played by Matthew McConaughey, who seems to have based his performance on the most obnoxious car salesman he’s ever met. McConaughey’s Man in Black isn’t frightening in the least, but he could probably get you a sweet deal on a Lincoln Continental.

The casting of Elba makes more sense than that of his surfer dude co-star, but while he brings the proper degree of gravitas to his role, the thinness of the screenplay means that there’s little depth to his characterization. The entire film suffers from a similar measure of surface sheen. Potentially interesting players come and go, other worlds and dimensions are visited, and characters engage in weighty proclamations like “He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father,” “He has the shine!” and “The gun is good; the penis is evil” (wait, that one’s from Zardoz; never mind). But by barreling through the story at Mach speed, nothing is allowed to marinate and deepen. What’s left, then, is a shallow fantasy in which most of the unimaginative action sequences consist of little more than Roland shooting his pistols at various villains. It may be High Noon in the land of The Dark Tower, but it’s a low ebb for viewers expecting anything of substance.

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events. There’s just something special about EACH WEEKEND my friends and I community, innovation, creativity and local attempt to find something new to do in vibes rejuvenating an unused space in our the Queen City — or at least participate backyard. in something familiar without the same Luckily, Goodyear Arts is eventually hangover. This past Friday our options were movnig right down the street to a new spot limited to the final art event at Goodyear Arts or the newly popular Fridays at Camp that’s been popping off on Fridays and North End. Not too shabby for a low key throghout the week, lately: Camp North End. Friday night.

Something intriguing is happening at the While waiting for the clock to strike 5:30 old warehouse district on Statesville Avenue. p.m., I watched as my co-worker — who I started seeing posts pop up after I followed was already looking like a snack — put on a few IG accounts related to tech talks, comakeup and made me feel even less dressed working spaces and the like. I’d like the way the to impress than I already was. Ever noticed background of the pics or videos looked and I’d how many times your friends will say, “I’m see the elusive location tag “Camp North End” not getting dressed up. I’m not even going to underneath the account name and wonder, put makeup on, only to show up looking like what the hell is that? I started asking around, it took them an hour to get ready instead of and no one knew what the deal was. an hour and a half? Yep, happens to me all Even after hopping in an 8-minute Uber the time. No, I’m not bitter. over to the space for Fridays at Camp North After a couple quick pregame drinks at End, I can’t say I’m any less confused. However, Connolly’s on Fifth, we rounded the corner the possibilities for the project are endless. and walked the couple blocks to Goodyear Arts We arrived by way of minivan to check for their “Goodbye, Goodyear” event. out the patio in the center of what Coincidentally, my first visit to felt like a massive compound — this gallery space was with complete with barbed wire. All these same ladies — minus a we knew was that there was few. It felt good to be back, going to be live music, food but it was bittersweet. trucks, corn hole, tables From the first time I’d and beer. My co-worker in visited Goodyear Arts, I need of a Snickers decided felt like I was home. The to get in a massive line for people, the eccentric art, a food truck while the rest the free beer. I mean, if of the group went to sniff this wasn’t the poster child out the beer. We noticed the for my dream living room, I AERIN SPRUILL long line that stretched between don’t know what was. us and the nearest Lenny Boy sign I’ve never been into and decided our Camp North End attending galleries or museums. Not exploration would have to wait. because I can’t appreciate the beauty of Apparently I missed all the coverage that’s art — even when I’m pretty sure I could lay surrounded the Camp North End launch down butt naked after a night of drinking in (read Kia Moore’s informative piece on the gold paint and make millions — but because Camp’s community manager, Varian Shrum, my anxiety takes over in busy spaces. “I’m at clclt.com). Since that night, though, I’ve trying to take a picture of that painting, can you not stand there and just take it all in?” learned that the project is being designed to “Ugh, how am I supposed to admire this house local businesses/startups and events. piece with all of you in my space?”

Not to mention, there’s currently 1.2 million That’s why I usually end up taking pictures square feet of existing building space. When of everything that catches my eye and review we’re talking about a project that already it all later in the comfort of my own home ... has that much space potential, there’s no alone. wonder why it’s been difficult to pin down its On top of the fact that I was anxious purpose — it will be the epitome of a multiabout crawling through the gallery, it was purpose facility in Charlotte. Friday night hot as hell. That’s why it wasn’t long before entertainment and community gathering for I was outside, taking in the evening air at events like Creative Mornings CLT are the the community table. I thought about how most popular facets for the Camp now, but much it sucked that Goodyear was leaving the future is limitless there. that space and that I hadn’t gone to more BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

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PREPOSITION REPETITION ACROSS

1 As a substitute 8 Part of VCR 16 Snow clearer 20 Saint who converted Scotland to Christianity 21 Informal “Leave it to me” 22 Roll-call call 23 Public speech about unity?

25 Dictator Idi 26 D.C. baseball team 27 Dog pests 28 On the -- (in hiding) 29 Gun-carrying 30 -- -devil 31 Roster 32 Canto or esprit lead-in 34 Big online dating site 37 Japanese dancing girls being helpers?

41 Shunned sort 43 Hagen of the stage 44 Former U.N. head Annan 45 Citizen of Muscat 46 Don’t leave the Hoosier State?

54 Method 55 Walk atop 57 “Wow!,” in a text message 58 Get via logic 59 Reeves of Hollywood 60 Dandy guy 61 Substitute 63 Prefix meaning “both” 66 Infant next to a famous British poet?

70 Holders of holy tablets 71 Observant 73 French “yes” 74 Atlanta university 76 Carne -- (Mexican dish) 77 Method: Abbr.

78 Feta, e.g.

80 English article 83 Route for some travelers headed for Ohio from Ontario?

87 Housing at 74-Across, e.g.

89 London vehicle 90 Hawaii’s Mauna -91 Style of many ski chalets

92 Police officer in a certain military posture?

100 Having several parts 101 They may be parked at KOA sites 102 Dark film genre 103 Seattle-to-Phoenix dir.

106 Weed B Gon brand 107 Stable diet?

109 Followers of Attila 110 Like two peas in -111 Miles of film 112 What DNA paternity tests provide?

117 Shah’s home 118 Assumed control of 119 Polar light phenomena 120 To be, to Tacitus 121 Fireplace log supporters 122 Adolescents, informally

DOWN

1 Holy relics 2 Singer Jones 3 Roofing color 4 Mild rebukes 5 Former U.K. record co.

6 Nullify 7 Pastry type 8 French film 9 In time past 10 Prince, e.g.

11 Artist Frank 12 2015 erupter 13 TV show opener, often 14 “-- a pity” 15 19th letter 16 Big -- (drug companies) 17 Actor Jack 18 Get aligned 19 Rival of Burger King 24 Bi- times four 29 Goya’s field 31 Act as a link 32 Not -- eye (show no reaction) 33 Actor Morales 35 Player of 45s 36 “It’s --!” (“That’s just wrong!”)

38 A, in Berlin 39 Japanese sport 40 Like bikinis

41 “Smack!”

42 Org. for drs.

46 Of kidneys 47 Digital book file extension 48 Tyro PC user 49 Drop down 50 Mosaic piece 51 Miles off 52 Tie locale 53 Eros’ father 56 Perfume from Dana 59 Fella 60 Sticky-note initialism 61 Juliet’s flame 62 Baseball’s Slaughter 63 At the drop of -64 “You’ve Made -- Very Happy” 65 Pooh, e.g.

67 Cellist with 18 Grammys 68 Total failure 69 Marsh stalk 72 Real admirer 75 West Coast evergreen 77 Hawaii achieved it in 1959 78 Congeals 79 Sun provision 80 Take place 81 “I wonder ...”

82 Suffix of nationalities 84 Certain Vette roof 85 Uttered 86 Kingly Norse name 88 Pedro’s gold 91 In dispute 92 Cheap flick 93 Sirens, say 94 Radicals 95 Gas in fuel 96 AFL- -97 Strive to get 98 Adequate, in dialect 99 Skim, maybe 104 Sub finder 105 Rims 108 Golfer Isao 109 -- d’oeuvre 110 Elvis -- Presley 112 K-12 gp.

113 Pal of Harry at Hogwarts 114 Lacto- -115 Marsh 116 Lead-in to existing

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SPANKING Who’s punishing my daughter?

My college-student daughter lives in an apartment over our garage. She has a boyfriend, age 19. After many loud “discussions,” he is allowed to sleep over. My daughter got an IUD without informing me, so I assume they’re sexually active. Two days ago, I crept into the apartment to check on something and found bondage items on her bed — a set of formidable leather restraints. I’m worried she’s being pressured to do things someone her age wouldn’t be interested in. We agreed not to go into the apartment when she wasn’t present, and I know there will be a loud “discussion” if I tell her what I saw. The mental image of my bound daughter distresses me and I worry for her safety. What do I do?

OFFSPRING HAS INCRIMINATING OBJECTS

it. Most women seem to be instantly turned off by these two things. I usually do very well with women, but they bolt when I tell them, and some have been quite hurtful. My family is very understanding about the high heels and my sexuality — even my father — but the average woman doesn’t seem to like it when I do something that they deem “theirs.” Which is so unfair. Women can do anything they please — wear pants if they like, have same-sex experiences — but I must submit or face the life of an outcast. Any advice on how to deal with this while also dealing with the bitterness and envy I feel?

ENRAGING GENDER AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

Let’s start with those feelings of envy, shall we? While it’s true that women can wear You stay the fuck out of your offspring’s pantsuits without causing alarm (or winning apartment when she isn’t home, OHIO, per the White House), and while it’s also true your agreement. And you keep that women can have same-sex these things in mind: Just as experiences without freaking out there are young queer people the men in their lives (because out there, there are young straight men are likelier to kinky people out there be aroused than repulsed), too. Your adult daughter women’s choices and might be one of them. their bodies are subjected For all you know, the to much more scrutiny, restraints were her idea and her boyfriend control, and violence than is the one getting tied our male bodies are, EGADS. up. And a scary-to-mom Until politicians legislate DAN SAVAGE set of restraints is a lot against your right to control safer than nylon clothesline your own body (and wear your or cheap handcuffs. Leather own heels), you can note the few restraints distribute pressure areas where women enjoy more latitude evenly, making them less likely to pinch than men, but you aren’t allowed to bitch a nerve or cut off circulation. Like your adult about them. daughter getting herself an IUD, formidable Now the good news: There are women bondage gear is a good sign that she takes out there who dig men in high heels, there her safety seriously. are women out there into bi guys, and Finally, OHIO, it’s perfectly there is a significant overlap between those understandable that you don’t like the two groups of women. If you succumb to mental image of your adult daughter tied to bitterness at your young age because you’ve the bed in her apartment (her apartment, been dumped a few times — if you despise not the apartment), but I’m guessing you all women because you were dumped by don’t like the mental image of your adult women you wouldn’t want to be with anyway daughter with a dick in her mouth, either.

— you’re going to scare off the women who Just as you don’t torment yourself by are genuinely attracted to guys like you. picturing the blowjobs your adult daughter is The women who bolted did you a painful almost certainly giving her boyfriend, don’t favor, and you should be grateful. Because torment yourself by picturing whatever else with those average women out of your life, she might be doing with, to, or for him.

EGADS, you’re free to go find an aboveaverage woman who wants an above-average I’m a 25-year-old man who is mostly guy like you. Pro-tip: You’re likelier to find interested in women but I like to mess those women at a fetish party or club, or via around with men sometimes. I also a kink social-media site or dating website. love wearing high heels and makeup — Good luck. not to “pass,” but just because I love

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