2017 Issue 26 Creative Loafing Charlotte by Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | AUG 17 - AUG 23, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 26

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NEWS&CULTURE DISCONNECTED Inmates and loved ones feel effects after Mecklenburg County ends in-person visitation BY ERIN TRACY-BLACKWOOD 6 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 11 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN

FOOD HIP HOP GARDENING Jesse Leadbetter grows a local urban food

business from scratch BY ALISON LEININGER

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

MUSIC ECLECTIC BLUE Bedroom musician Deion Funderburk finds reverie

on ‘justbehappy’ BY MARK KEMP

19 MUSICMAKER: DJ KATO BY KIA O. MOORE 20 SOUNDBOARD

ARTS&ENT DRUID CHIC Get your fantasy on at Royal Peasantry BY GREY REVELL 25 ARTSPEAK: OSIRIS RAIN BY GREY REVELL 25 FILM REVIEW: STEP BY MATT BRUNSON

ODDS&ENDS 26 MODERN EROTIC BY ALLISON BRADEN 26 NIGHTLIFE BY AERIN SPRUILL 27 CROSSWORD 28 SAVAGE LOVE 30 STARGAZER BY VIVIAN CAROL

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COVER ILLUSTRATION BY DANA VINDIGNI CLCLT.COM | AUG 17 - AUG 23, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 26

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VIEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

TEAR THEM DOWN It’s time for Charlotte to wipe off Confederate stains ON AUG. 11, the cities of Charlotte and his followers, instructing them to violently Charlottesville were very different places, confront protesters. “Get ’em out,” he repeated although that was unclear Saturday morning, at campaign stops across the country. To be sure, this president is hardly the when people from other parts of the country were using the hashtags #Charlotte and first American leader to endorse racial #Charlottesville interchangeably on social division and violence. The U.S. has a terrible media. Those hashtags were, of course, in track record with regard to race. The current reference to the deadly white supremacist commander in chief is just the latest in a long rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, that has line of politicians who have gotten it terribly shaken our country to its core over the past wrong in the centuries since European settlers slaughtered 80 percent of this land’s several days. We all now know what happened in indigenous people to create the United States. But as more Americans over the past Charlottesville: domestic terrorists marched through the small college town holding torches. few decades have begun to acknowledge the The next day, one terrorist drove through a country’s racist legacy, white supremacist group of anti-racist counter-protesters, killing terrorism like the one seen in Charlottesville 32-year-old Heather Heyer. By all accounts, has become more prevalent. And it must stop. the events were not a reflection of the people One solution is for cities hosting the of Charlottesville, whose city council had earlier voted to tear down a bronze sculpture of remaining 1,000 Confederate monuments in Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The white 31 states to diligently and vigilantly follow in the footsteps of Charlottesville’s supremacists who arrived to protest that leaders in wiping away those decision came from other places. stains. In Durham, on Aug. 14, What most people don’t protesters took matters into know is that a very different their own hands. Carrying scenario went down in signs reading “No Trump, Charlotte Aug. 11. While no KKK, no racist USA” white supremacists held they wrapped a yellow the city of Charlottesville rope around the statue hostage that Friday night, of a Confederate soldier, a diverse group of music which crumbled to the and arts lovers gathered at ground with hardly any two CLT clubs, the Rabbit effort. In my hometown of Hole and Snug Harbor, for MARK KEMP Asheboro, where the statue of culturally inclusive events a Confederate soldier has stood that brought together almost in front of the courthouse all my every important local musician CL life, a former Randolph County NAACP has featured, in one way or another, over the past six months: rappers Deniro president has asked that it be removed and Farrar, Elevator Jay, Black Linen, Nige Hood, replaced with one honoring the area’s pacifist Tizzy of Th3 Higher; singers Kevin “Mercury” Quakers, who valiantly resisted the Civil War. But what about Charlotte? It’s time for Carter, Autumn Rainwater, Dexter Jordan, Celeste Moonchild; rockers LeAnna Eden and two prominent Confederate monuments Blu House; and surrealist performance artist here to go, too. One, on North Kings Drive outside Memorial Stadium, includes the words, Allamuto, to name just a few. Plaza Midwood was all about celebrating “preserving the Anglo-Saxon civilization of the diversity, not separation, that Friday. But South.” Tear it down. Another, now standing it could have been another story. What in Elmwood Cemetary, reads, “Mecklenburg happened in Charlottesville easily could County remembers with honor her gallant sons have happened here. When racist terrorists who fought in the armies of the Confederate invade cities, as they did Charlottesville, they states. With the other brave soldiers of the could care less about the people who live South, they struggled nobly for the cause in those cities. Their aim is to create chaos of independence and constitutional selfand violence, and they serve a president government.” Tear it down. Unfortunately, it won’t so be easy to who has consistently given tacit support of their hatred, bigotry and violence. While officially remove those stains. That’s because that president was pressured into making a when former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory was statement against hate groups two days after governor in 2015, he signed a law forbidding the violence, his words fell empty in light of such removals. And so … the monuments will have to be removed in other ways. his previous comments and tweets. Maybe the diverse group of artists who “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” the president said of a Black Lives Matter gathered in Plaza Midwood on Aug. 12 could protester while on the campaign trail in form a task force to help our city and county 2016. “Knock the crap out of them,” he told leaders come up with creative solutions. 6 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

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NEWS

COVERSTORY

DISCONNECTED Inmates and loved ones feel effects after Mecklenburg County ends in-person visitation ERIN TRACY-BLACKWOOD

N SEPTEMBER 23, 2016, hundreds of protesters marching through the streets of Uptown Charlotte stopped outside of the Mecklenburg County Jail on East 4th Street to show solidarity. As some inmates inside flicked their lights on and off in recognition, the protesters chanted, “We see you, we hear you, we love you.” Less than a month later, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office passed new rules regarding inmate visitation that has since made it harder for those inmates’ loved ones to see them, harder to hear them and harder to show their love for their incarcerated family members. In October 2016, the MCSO quietly ended in-person visitation for its inmates, 64 percent of whom have yet to be convicted of any crime and are still innocent in the eyes of the law. The prison visitation scenes depicted in movies where families sit together at a table, watched by a guard, or speak on a phone through a pane of glass are obsolete in Charlotte in 2017. Visitation is now conducted exclusively via remote video chat over the internet. The service is provided by a corporation called GTL, which markets it as a Skype or FaceTime for prisons and tells tales of a world where prisoners’ lives are enriched by stretching communication beyond cell walls. “I enjoy hearing all the stories about inmates who, through internet visitation, are able to attend their child’s birthday party or see the pet they love, all things that are not possible with traditional visitation methods at a correctional facility,” writes a GTL product manager on the company’s blog. However, some activists are concerned that this development is not as positive as the marketing spin would have you believe. One problem is cost. Video visitations at the Mecklenburg County Jail cost $12.50 per 25-minute session. The costs of the service on top of other fees normally paid by inmates’ families — such as for hygiene necessities, food and legal representation — can be a serious challenge for middle-class families to keep up with. They present an insurmountable obstacle for those families who are already economically disadvantaged — a population over-represented in the justice system. Former MCSO inmate Dannielle, 31, who did not want her last name used in this article, estimated that her family spent $50 8 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

Protesters outside of the Mecklenburg County Jail in 2016. to $80 a week while she was locked up in order to maintain regular contact with her and ensure her basic needs were met. That figure is in line with those in a sweeping study conducted in 2014 by the Ella Baker Center, which found that one in three families with a loved one in prison goes into debt trying to cover the costs of keeping in touch with them. Cat Bao Le, founding director of the Southeast Asian Coalition in Charlotte, helps area immigrant families when a loved one gets caught up in the justice system. Most of the organization’s casework — which includes translation, showing up at court dates and explaining to families what comes next — is with juvenile inmates, but one youth the organization worked with recently turned 18 and was brought into a pod with adult inmates at the Mecklenburg County Jail. It was then that Le became familiar with the effects of the switch to video monitoring. The inmate’s family members are Vietnamese immigrants with no understanding of English and no access to the internet. “Going to video has been so difficult for this family,” Le says. “Being able to drop in with two or three family members during that designated time and going in to see someone cuts out the literacy divide, the digital divide, the cultural divide, the monetary divide. They’re illiterate, they’re indigenous people from Vietnam, they don’t even know how to read in their own language. Not being able to speak English, not having transportation

— and we don’t have a way we can contact them otherwise, so we just have to drive over there. And you have to register [for video conferencing] 24 hours in advance. Before, you could just put their names down, whoever’s going to visit, and you could go in. Now there’s just so many different steps.” Prison communication companies are notorious for price-gouging families that want to maintain contact with loved ones. Fans of the Serial podcast may remember GTL by its previous name, Global Tel*Link, which provided communications services in the prison housing Serial’s subject, Adnan Syed. When that season was over, Bloomberg Media, which published Serial, estimated the cost of the 40 hours of phone calls recorded on the podcast at about $2,500. The Obama Administration sought to cap the soaring prices of prison communications, but the providers, including GTL, fought back with lawsuits. Earlier this year Ajit Pai, Trump’s appointment to chair the FCC, announced the agency would not work to defend the regulations under his leadership.

PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT than the

economic concern for families is the safety for prisoners and guards that results from eliminating face-to-face contact between inmates and their loved ones from the outside world. Oftentimes, anticipating the arrival of friends and family gives prisoners the

PHOTOS BY RYAN PITKIN.

hope and resilience they need to make it through their incarceration. Person-to-person visits can motivate prisoners to keep on the straight and narrow until they can resume those relationships on the outside. The visits give the inmates a sense that there’s a world waiting for them to return to. A 2014 study by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition found that two years after the Travis County Jail, in Austin, instituted video-only visitation, disciplinary infractions climbed 42 percent and inmate-on-inmate assaults increased 20 percent. Furthermore, disciplinary action for possession of contraband increased 54 percent within the first year, and inmate-on-staff assaults doubled almost immediately after visitation was removed. That data paints a much darker picture than the feel-good anecdotes of the birthday parties and pet visits featured on GTL’s website. Le recognizes that video visitation has its positive effects, but emphasizes it should be used as an additional option or reward for inmates. “There are some positives to the video conference; if you’re in another state, that’s important that you can talk to your loved one,” Le says. “And that it’s at any time. Before, it was when your pod had a certain time or a certain day . . . but I think it needs to be a mixture of both and not just either/ or, because it leaves out a whole big segment of the community, which happens to be the

“When you are in there not being able to see your family and your kids, it feels like you’re being even more removed from society and it feels like you are less than a human being,” -DANNIELLE, (BELOW) FORMER MECKLENBURG COUNTY INMATE

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community that’s already marginalized and are in jail and can’t get out.” GTL is careful to absolve itself from responsibility for the removal of in-person visitation. Its website states the software is meant to supplement in-person visitation, not eliminate it: “Global Tel*Link knows that video visitation on the web is an effective complement to traditional visitation methods — not one meant to replace them,” the company marketing reads. “We are trying to fill the gaps left by traditional visitation methods and aim to make communicating with loved ones easier for those that are

challenged by distance or time constraints. Some in our industry have [been] pushing for the elimination of in-person visitation when facilities implement remote video visitation, but GTL recommends providing a spectrum of options rather than dictating the terms of visitation in any specific facility.” Furthermore, even inmates with the resources to access video visitation are often left feeling disconnected from family in more ways than one. Despite companies like GTL painting their service as comparable to widely-used services like Skype, many say the quality isn’t comparable. Bastrop County Jail in Texas reported that despite eliminating in-person visits, video visitations were in less demand than had been expected. Only a couple dozen inmates per month requested the service, while most were turned off by the high cost and poor quality.  Dannielle, the former Mecklenburg County inmate CL spoke to, said the quality of video visitation here is equally bad. “The video chat would go in and out. Sometimes half the screen would be cut off, and sometimes they wouldn’t work at all,” Dannielle remembered. “You wouldn’t even get your visitation; you would have to wait until the next week, because even though the system was down, they would not make up the visitation you missed.” According to the refund stipulations listed on GTL’s brochure, full refunds are only given if the “visitor” cancels more than SEE

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NEWS

COVERSTORY

INMATES FROM P.9 t 48 hours before the visit, or if the jail cancels the visit for any reason, not for glitchy service that cuts a visit short. When asked why it decided to end inperson visitation, the Mecklenburg County Sherriffs Office pointed to an October press release stating, “This new service will allow Detention Officers at Jail Central and Jail North to continue to ensure the safety of all visitors, inmates and staff by limiting the movement of inmates within the jail.” That seems an unlikely rationale given the findings of the Travis County study. So, what is the real reason? Most likely, revenue. The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition’s analysis of contracts between counties and prison communications corporations estimated counties receive, on average, 23 percent of the profits made from calls and video visitations. Sometimes they’re also guaranteed an additional amount on top of that. For instance, GTL guaranteed $15 million to Los Angeles County within the first year of implementation. Video visitation is likely a lucrative venture for Mecklenburg County, with poor families paying the cost and support networks breaking down as a result. Unlike a federal prison, almost all of the inmates at the Mecklenburg County Jail will be returning to

a street near you at some point. When they do, their ability to thrive in regular society depends on their support network. A decade of research shows how maintaining these relationships while they’re incarcerated lessens the likelihood of repeat offenses. A 2011 study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections found that prisoners who received even one in-person visit from a loved one were 13 percent less likely to commit new crimes and 25 percent less likely to violate parole. Dannielle’s stint in the Mecklenburg County Jail was 45 days, in which she missed her daughter’s third birthday and was never able to see her except on a screen that rarely worked well. “When you are in there not being able to see your family and your kids, it feels like you’re being even more removed from society and it feels like you are less than a human being,” she said of the experience. Which begs the question: When someone who has already been placed in a pen is being made to feel even less like a human, what is the endgame? *Ryan Pitkin reported on and contributed to this story.

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NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

SPILT MILK A 22-year-old woman in northeast Charlotte was tested on the old expression about crying over spilled milk last week when someone vandalized her car. The woman told police that a known suspect broke the door handle off of her Chevrolet Suburban then spilled milk all over the car’s interior. No word in the report whether she cried or not. ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID A 23-year-

old woman living in southwest Charlotte is going to be the outcast of a wedding she’ll be in soon after having her dress stolen. The woman told police she had the custom-made bridesmaid dress, worth $150, mailed to her home. But before she could collect it from the porch, someone else swooped in and collected it for her, leaving her the odd-woman out among her fellow bridesmaids.

YOUR MCM Police responded to a call about a suspicious person in west Charlotte at around 1:30 a.m. one night last week and found a man who had been sleeping in his car — behind a mattress factory, ironically enough — but at the time of their arrival was throwing up due to being overly drunk. Medics took the man to the hospital, but before doing so, they informed police that the man was armed. Police took his black Cobra .380 as found property, since he had shown he wasn’t exactly in the right mind state to be carrying at the time. TRAP HOUSE A 33-year-old man and his buddy filed a police report after being quite literally kicked out of a bar in west Charlotte last week. The man told police he was at Sand Trap Bar on Westinghouse Boulevard when a man approached him and asked him to leave. Then, “for no reason,” according to the man, the suspect punched him. He said he was then punched and kicked by the suspect and two other men. At some point, a fourth man took a swing at the victim’s friend, who was trying to help get him out of the bar. THIRST QUENCHER Police responded to a Walmart on Pineville-Matthews Road last week after management there realized that an employee had stolen a remarkable amount of money from the business, then rubbed salt (or soda) in the wound. Management told officers that the suspect had stolen $1,470 from the building while working as a cashier for a little under a month, and then for good measure, he even stole a $1 bottle of soda during his embezzlement spree. IT’S GONE The manager at Roses discount store on The Plaza called police last week after someone stole something from their store, even though they didn’t know what it was. It’s unclear how the manager knew something was taken, but in the report, it states that “the manager has no idea what was taken.”

LOCKED OUT A 37-year-old woman called police when she came home one afternoon last week to realize that she couldn’t get into her University area house. Nobody had changed the locks on her, however, but had taken a more DIY approach instead. The suspect stuck some very small material into her front door keyhole so that she was unable to unlock it. SAFETY FIRST The point of a hotel safe is to keep things safe, hence the name, but it doesn’t quite work if you leave things in there for the next visitor or family to find. Police responded to the Omni hotel in Uptown last week after someone who was cleaning out a room opened up a safe to find that the previous visitor, a 24-year-old man from Evans, Georgia, had left a handgun with a magazine, 18 rounds of ammunition and a holster in the safe. FRESHEN UP A 29-year-old man called police after someone bombed his south Charlotte home … with cologne. The man told police that he was at home at around 11 p.m. one night when some unknown suspect threw two bottles of perfume through his front windows, causing them to shatter in his home. If this was an ex-girlfriend, it’s safe to say you need to take a hint. ANGRY DRUNK Police responded to the scene of a melee in southwest Charlotte to find one woman who had decided to show everyone in her house that she wasn’t to be fucked with. Witnesses told police the suspect had been drinking when she got upset, and once that happened, it was on. She assaulted three people in the house, including two men 35 and 49 years old. One of the men was her husband, so she was arrested for domestic violence and simple assault. BAIT AND SWITCH Employees at a local jewelry store filed a police report after they were scammed into buying a fake gold bracelet. The employees at Ballantyne Jewelers told police that the suspects came in and showed them a gold bracelet, which store associates verified as real before offering them $500 for it. The suspects agreed, but then at some point before the bracelet actually changed hands, a suspect switched the bracelet with a fake one when the associates looked the other way. The associates were easily able to tell the difference, but not before the suspects left the business with the $500. FOR CHRIST’S SAKE Police responded to a counterfeiting call at the Lifeway Christian Store near the Northlake Mall last week after an unknown suspect got away with fooling someone who was doing God’s work. Police who responded to the scene weren’t very sympathetic, as they made sure to add salt to the wound in the report, stating that the two fake $100 bills passed by the suspects “were in poor quality and were obviously fake.” Well clearly not to whomever was working that day. CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 11

FOOD

FEATURE

HIP HOP GARDENING Jesse Leadbetter grows a local urban food business from scratch BY ALISON LEININGER

E ARE LIVING in a food paradox. Our current culinary trends emphasize ultra-fresh, clean, local food, preferably directly from the farmer. But whether you’re a hardpartying hipster, or an overscheduled parent, who has the time to spend on Saturday mornings trawling the farmers market for kale and kohlrabi? Outside of Charlotte’s thriving farmers markets, there is additional demand for highquality ingredients, boosting the popularity of meal and grocery delivery services like Instacart and Blue Apron. That’s the market Jesse Leadbetter hopes to tap with his localfood delivery service Freshlist. The fledgling company aims to pair the convenience of home delivery with the quality and freshness of locally-grown ingredients. “Amazon, Blue Apron — none of those people can compete on that kind of level,” Leadbetter says. But that’s not at all where the self-described corporate refugee expected to find himself. Leadbetter, a fresh-faced entrepreneur with a trim, ginger beard, grew up in Texas, went to Oklahoma University for a degree in marketing, and landed in Charlotte seeking “somewhere different that wasn’t flat and hot.” He worked for eight years in the sports collectibles industry before realizing he wanted more. “I’ve always had that kind of entrepreneurial spirit, and I knew I was going to wake up one day, at 60, and regret not at least trying to do something a little more meaningful,” Leadbetter says. He’s standing beside a small chicken coop in his oversized backyard garden where he grows a variety of crops largely for local breweries — jalapeños for Birdsong; lavender, Thai basil and peaches for Heist; and of course, hops. “That was the easy part, realizing I was unhappy,” he continues. “The hard part was figuring out what I actually wanted to do.” As it turned out, Leadbetter only had to look out his back door. He and his girlfriend had moved into their home in the Belmont neighborhood in 2009, and started a few small garden beds the next spring. His limited gardening experience came via his grandmother — a circumstance he’s found common among his peers. “I feel like our generation’s grandparents farmed or gardened, all of them,” Leadbetter says. “And it only took one generation for us to be completely removed from that.” 12 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

ALL PHOTOS BY ALLISON LEININGER

Jesse Leadbetter’s backyard garden in Belmont.

Leadbetter shows off one of his hops. Today, Leadbetter’s garden beds have morphed into a small urban farm dubbed Soulshine Organics, spread across an adjacent lot purchased with neighbors in 2012. His interest in clean, fresh food grew along with it, while burgeoning contacts in local agriculture led to learning about the complexities of America’s farming industry and fostered an urge to help local growers and chefs.

In 2013, Leadbetter dreamed up the first iteration of Freshlist, enlisting friends as financial backers and logistical consultants. “We wanted to create a platform where farms list their inventory and chefs could log on and buy it,” he says. “We didn’t want to be a middle man, we didn’t want to handle logistics; we just wanted to keep chef Paul connected directly with [any given] farmer.”

But after leaving his job in 2014 and launching the Freshlist website in 2016, he quickly heard calls for expanded service. “We realized that all these restaurants that don’t have time to go to farmers markets on Saturdays needed something a little more like the Sysco service they had, where if they needed delivery on a Tuesday, they can get it,” Leadbetter says. So this summer the company bit the bullet and purchased a Dodge ProMaster delivery van. For the moment, the Freshlist van hits the streets twice a week, bringing Tega Hills lettuces and microgreens to 25 customers around Charlotte. Farmer Mindy Robinson says handing over deliveries will allow her to make better use of her own staff. “Now that Jesse has entered the picture, it lets me shift my people here,” Robinson says. “Everything flows a lot smoother when everyone’s on the farm.” Leadbetter plans to add other growers’ products, with the goal to expand the number of participants on both sides of the service. “Aggregating from different farms to help the bigger restaurants was the piece that we really needed to have in place,” he says. “The van is a big step in that process.” It’s also the reason we civilian shoppers should sit up and take notice, because, as Leadbetter says, “If we have a van, we should do home deliveries.” Beginning Sunday, August 27, Freshlist will offer its services to residents in select zip codes in Charlotte. Customers will place their orders by Thursday at Freshlist.com, choosing from produce, meats, seafood, even baked goods, condiments and coffee — “anything you’d see in a grocery store, as long as it’s being done locally.” Sundays will find purchases dropped at front doors in insulated containers designed

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A multicolored pepper plant. to “preserve the cold chain” for up to 48 hours, even on hot Carolina afternoons. As Freshlist finds its feet, coverage will expand further toward the outskirts of the city. This service wasn’t at all in the plans Leadbetter originally developed, as he was fearful of “scope creep,” or uncontrolled growth, spreading the Freshlist concept too thin. “It wasn’t until we realized that it was going to be good for the farms,” Leadbetter says, “If we did something like getting local groceries delivered, or a meal kit with local ingredients put together with a local chef.” Those meal kits are part of his plans for growing organically as the market builds. He’d also like to include local wines, beers and spirits, and he’s talking to New Appalachian, a wholesale distributor based in Ashe County. “When stuff’s out of season here because it’s too hot, we can move [sourcing] out to the mountains,” Leadbetter says, explaining that he doesn’t necessarily define “local” in terms of miles. “For us, it’s as local as possible, as long as the grower is transparent,” he adds. Transparency features heavily in Freshlist’s policies, and is only one criteria in selecting vendors. “One of our standards is that the producers have to contribute to the community and pay fair wages,” Leadbetter says. Regardless of whether he is helping farmers move a bumper crop, chefs streamline their orders, or area residents fit local food into their busy lives, it all comes

Cascadia hop buds. down to community for Leadbetter. “When people think about local food, they think it’s important because it’s fewer food miles,” he says. “For me, local food is about the strength of your local economy.” One day Leadbetter hopes to transplant his model to other cities around the U.S., with an eye toward his old stomping grounds in Texas. When that day comes, we can tout Freshlist as another great food idea grown in North Carolina — all thanks to a corporate refugee and his backyard. CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 13

THURSDAY

GIRLS SHRED FREE What: The fine folks at Armada Skate Shop have been proactive in getting girls on their boards this summer. Since June, they’ve been sponsoring a weekly event for girls to show up and skate, regardless of resources. Don’t have any money? Skate for free. Don’t have any pads? Armada has got you on that front, too. Admission is free all day, but the crowd usually starts to show up around 5 p.m., so if you’re trying to show off a little bit, that’s your time to shine. When: All day, every Thursday. Where: Grayson Skate Park, 750 Beal St. More: Free. armadaskateshop. bigcartel.com

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

THURSDAY

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Social Distortion SATURDAY

PHOTO COURTESY OF EPITAPH RECORDS

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

18 EARTH, WIND & FIRE

‘GOOK’ FILM SCREENING

THE SUBMISSION

What: Technical difficulties stopped Gook from screening at CineOdyssey Film Festival in July, but that’s no reason to give up. Revisit the CineOdyssey experience with this flick about two KoreanAmerican brothers who befriend an 11-year-old African-American girl, while defending their struggling shoe store from the impending chaos of the ‘92 L.A. riots. The movie pays homage to Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing in both execution and style in examining race relations in the early ‘90s.

What: A struggling white playwright finally pens a winner about a black family in the projects. To gain credibility, he hires a black actress to pose as the author of his piece. Three Bone Theatre’s latest production is plotted like a sitcom, but it pays off with dramatic punch. Jeff Talbot’s award-winning play unmasks the race and gender prejudices that lurk within all of us. Visit clclt.com for a preview from Perry Tannenbaum’s, who spoke with some of the show’s leads.

What: With the 2016 death of Maurice White, EWF lost a shining star, although White had not toured with the band he cofounded in the late-1960s since the mid-’90s. His brother Verdine on bass, percussionist Ralph Johnson and singer Philip Bailey have been trotting out White’s “Shining Star” ever since. Though not as energetic as in their prime, the band’s sometimes psychdelicized, sometimes Latin-ized mix of funk, pop and soul is just as theatrical.

When: Aug. 17-19, Aug. 24-26; 8 p.m. Where: Duke Energy Theater, 345 N. College St. More: $22 - 28. blumenthalarts.org

When: 8 p.m. Where: Spectrum Center, 333 E Trade St. More: $39 and up. spectrum. center-charlotte.com

When: 7:30 p.m. Where: Little Rock Cultural Center, 401 N. Myers St. More: $10. cineodysseyfest.org

FRIDAY

18 PREMIUM SOUND ONE-YEAR BIRTHDAY BASH What: Records are back, and the guys at Premium Sound have been cultivating the local vinyl scene for the last 365 days. Their backs are tired from lugging those crates around the city for all those popups, so they’re going to put them down for a bit at The Station on Friday night and you’re wlecome to dig on through. DJ Omelette Baum will be on the ones and twos, and Ghost Tree will be serving up Deep South free jazz fire. When: 8 p.m.-2 a.m. Where: The Station, 2131 Central Ave. More: Free. facebook.com/ premiumsound

Hummingbird Festival SATURDAY

Gook THURSDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

Girls Shred Free THURSDAY PHOTO BY CORDRELL CORBERT

SATURDAY

PHOTO COURTESY OF CINEODYSSEY FILM FESTIVAL

PHOTO COURTESY OF MECK. CO. PARKS & REC.

SATURDAY

HUMMINGBIRD FESTIVAL

A SAMBA SOCIAL

What: Editor Mark Kemp’s first thought when he heard this was that it was a festival for owners of Gibson Hummingbird guitars to show up and strum together. Although that would probably be a better fit for CL’s Top Ten, we think real hummingbirds are cool as shit and we totally want to go to this. Experience hummingbird branding, a delicate process that only 150 people in the country are permitted to do, and other family-friendly fun. Call us geeks, but sometimes nature rocks harder than a Gibson.

What: Tony Arreaza and Davey Blackburn’s Latin Night in Plaza Midwood presents a Brazilian blowout — a night of samba, batucada, capoeira (a Brazilian martial art/dance/music tradition) and more. It’s a benefit show for the N.C. Brazilian Arts Project and The International Capoeira School on Central Avenue, whose mission is to promote dynamic cultural exchange in Charlotte. Also, check out our ‘Local Vibes’ podcast episode featuring Arreaza and Blackburn, out Thursday.

When: 9 a.m. Where: Reedy Creek Park, 2900 Rocky River Road. More: Free. mecknc.gov

When: 10 p.m. Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: $10. snugrock.com.

SATURDAY

SOCIAL DISTORTION

SUNDAY

20 MONICA

What: Outside of X, Social Distortion may be the late-’70s Southern California punk scene’s greatest success story — if, by success, you mean endurance and relevance over sales. Social Distortion kept the energy of SoCal hardcore while jettisoning the genre’s straitjacketed louder-faster sound. Instead, they embraced a bit of the ragged-but-right social commentary of The Clash and a touch of the hardscrabble country of Johnny Cash, forging their own punk-Americana hybrid.

What: Brandy and Monica are at it again. On Aug. 9, the day Whitney Houston would have turned 54, Monica Instagrammed a “Happy Heavenly Birthday” to the late R&B diva. Not to be outdone, Brandy followed with her own tribute that doubled as a swipe at Monica. And just as they did in their 1998 Grammy-winning duet “The Boy is Mine” — not to mention several times since — the one-named singers went at it. Now, just three months after Brandy’s appearance at the Fillmore, Monica follows.

When: 8 p.m. Where: Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St. More: $36 and up. fillmorecharlottenc.com

When: 7:30 p.m. Where: Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St. More: $42.50 and up. fillmorecharlottenc.com

MONDAY

SOLAR ECLIPSE PARTY AT CAMP NORTH END What: The stars will come out, birds will stop singing and temperatures will drop. Solar eclipses have freaked out and fascinated humans and other animals for centuries. An ancient Chinese account described the event as the sun being eaten. Charlotte’s eclipse won’t be total, but at 98 percent it will be darned close. Of all the area viewing parties, Camp North End is the only one on top of a former Ford Model-T factory. When: 12-4 p.m. Where: Camp North End, 1776 Statesville Ave. More: Free. retiset.org

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 15

MUSIC

FEATURE

ECLECTIC BLUE Bedroom musician Deion Funderburk finds reverie on ‘justbehappy’ BY MARK KEMP

E CAN THANK Abel Tesfaye for tearing down the walls that isolate bedroom musicians such as Deion Funderburk, the Charlotte-area artist who records and performs as Deion Reverie. Earlier this decade, Tesfaye kickstarted his own bedroom project, The Weeknd, when he uploaded a series of mysterious lo-fi videos to YouTube. Within a handful of years, Tesfaye would win two Grammys and an Oscar nomination as The Weeknd, and sell more than 2 million copies of his 2015 mainstream masterpiece Beauty Behind the Madness. Funderburk, 24, is not at that point yet. But he could be soon. “Everything I’ve ever done was selftaught,” Funderburk says. The lanky, 6-foot-1 singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is sitting at a picnic table outside Snug Harbor on a weekday afternoon, dressed sharply in a purple collar shirt over a blue tee, tan jeans and grey Adidas sneakers. “I taught myself how to sing. I taught myself how to play guitar. And I taught myself how to record and produce music.” On Friday, Aug. 18, Funderburk will bring his Deion Reverie alter ego to Snug Harbor on a bill that also features the Memphisbased art-folk combo Syrrup and New York anti-folk singer Thomas Patrick Maguire. It’s an eclectic lineup, but the through line is a fondness for scrappy, homemade indie-folk. That was the first kind of music Funderburk gravitated to when he began recording himself in the eighth grade after a brief flirtation with hardcore screamo. “I would write songs in class and I had a little acoustic guitar and I knew four chords,” Funderburk remembers. “All my songs were in the same key and same chords, just different words. It was this little folky kind of stuff, and I did it under the name Tigers on Roller Skates.” Excellent name. Funderburk laughs. “Yeah, cool name but it was awful,” he says. “Trust me. I still have the files.” Funderburk is referring to digital files, of course. It’s no secret that the widespread availability of affordable digital recording equipment, together with the rise of music sites like Bandcamp and SoundCloud, has unearthed a generation of wildly creative indie bedroom artists in the 2010s. In the past six months, I’ve written about two of them in the Charlotte area alone: Angela Saylor, who records as Minthill and produces electronic music in the minimalist vein of pioneering experimental composers like Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros; and singer 16 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

Deion Funderburk, aka Deion Reverie, tells himself to just be happy on his new album. Kevin “Mercury” Carter, a musical genius with a pristine voice and talent for creating layered pop arrangements in the continuum of Brian Wilson and Prince.

IN THE PRE-INTERNET musical world, those realms belonged largely to privileged, mostly white, mostly male composers. Musicians like Funderburk, who grew up in an African-American family in the tiny South Carolina town of Pageland, just below the state line in rural Chesterfield County, had little hope of seeing beyond the horizon. But now, a single mouse click takes creative souls into new worlds that look vastly different from what’s outside the bedroom window. For Funderburk, early exposure to MTV and VH1 eventually led to that mouse click. He’d grown up loving the gospel music and Michael Jackson songs his mother liked, and the Prince albums and vintage soul that his father preferred. He began singing in the choir at his family’s small Baptist church, but then VH1 introduced something different to Funderburk’s world. “I can tell you the day I wanted a guitar,” he says, dramatically. “I was at home and we had just gotten satellite television, and I was watching VH1, and they were playing The Song Remains the Same, the Led Zeppelin concert film. And I heard the song ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You.’” He pauses for effect, then lowers his voice, as if someone is listening in on our conversation: “Changed my life, dude.

From that moment, I wanted to play guitar.” Funderburk soon discovered MTV, where he heard Green Day’s American Idiot and learned about heavier bands such as System of a Down. That changed his life again. He got himself a Fender Stratocaster guitar and formed a screamo band, Hands Over Lives, which lasted all of four months. “I still have the Strat,” Funderburk says. “It’s destroyed from when I was in the band. I wanted to be a hardcore rock star, so I’d sling it around and throw it down, even though it cost $1,400.” He snears: “Whatever,” he says, dismissively, then grins and adds, “It was just so punk rock.” After his flirtations with punk and indiefolk, Funderburk clicked onto a website that offered recording equipment; he bought some and taught himself how to use it. “I started to gravitate more towards synthesizers,” he says. “And now I’m really into synths and samplers and computer software and stuff like that. But I still play guitar and I still do live drums.” Funderburk began recording as Deion Reverie. He got the name from a friend. “When I started doing solo music, my friend suggested I call myself Eon Reverie, because eon means a long time or everlasting, and reverie means a daydream,” he says. “Then I thought, well my name’s Deion, so why not make it Deion Reverie?” The songs on his new album, justbehappy, a project Funderburk began in February 2015 and completed just this past March, came

PHOTO BY PABLO LOPEZ

slowly. He had broken up with a girlfriend and fallen into a severe depression. He needed to work out his feelings and chose to use music as his therapy. “These are songs I made just because I had to make them to stay sane,” Funderburk says. “I never really planned on releasing them. I just made the songs because it made me feel better to make the songs.” Zach Reader, who books the music at Snug Harbor, was impressed by Funderburk’s artistry. “Deion is awesome and definitely making a name for himself around town,” Reader says. “He reached out to me initially and seemed professional and hungry, and I felt he would mesh well with the first show we worked on. Plus, his recordings told me that he was focused and had put time into his music.”

ALTHOUGH WILDLY eclectic, justbehappy

manages to hold together as the work of an artist with a singular vision, navigating the emotional fallout of a breakup in ways that anyone listening can relate to. In the haunting title track, over layers of swirling effects, vocal harmonies, syncopated percussion and gorgeous, nuanced use of Autotune, Funderburk tells himself, in a vulnerable tenor, “Just be happy.” A lo-fi acoustic interlude, “Before We Met,” features his friend and long-distance collaborator Justine Dee Moritz (a Canadian indie-folkie artist who performs as Dearest) singing over scratchy guitar, “I’m scared now to hear your

Funderburk hides behind his hands during a June 13 Deion Reverie show at Snug Harbor.

VIDEO STILL BY DEION FUNDERBURK

DEION REVERIE (W/ THOMAS PATRICK MAGUIRE, SYRRUP) 10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 18. $5. Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. 704-5611781. snugrock.com

name.” And in “Late Night,” through cobwebs of mid-tempo electronic music, Funderburk’s lyrics can’t even be made out; the song comes off like the hissing of My Bloody Valentine filtered through EDM. Funderburk ends the LP with “Find a Way,” which opens with the sound of pouring rain over a liquid Les Paul guitar part, before evolving into a steady, thumping beat and the hopeful, “So I’ll keep praying / Maybe one day / Maybe one day / I’ll find a way.” In a way, Funderburk has come full circle on justbehappy. You can hear elements of the mainstream R&B he listened to as a small child; the strumming and picking of the acoustic indie-folk he played in middle school; the narrative thread of Green Day’s American Idiot; the rock sounds he absorbed from artists ranging from Prince to Led Zeppelin to My Chemical Romance; and the more experimental electronic music of current influences like Lapalux and XXYYXX. And you can hear The Weeknd. “It’s just a big mix of the kind of stuff I’ve done all my life,” Funderburk says of justbehappy. He smiles bashfully, covers his face with his hands, and looks away, into the horizon. “A lot of the songs are not necessarily mixed well — a lot of them distort and clip.” He turns back and stares me square in the eyes: “And they do that purposefully,” he continues. “I made them like that because that’s how I was feeling.” MKEMP@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 17

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

MUSIC

MUSICMAKER

HOW TO THROW AN AFROPOP! PARTY When DJ Kato frees his mind, your ass will follow BY KIA O. MOORE

“GET FREE!” is the phrase of choice for event planners Ifeanyi Ibeto, Eric Ndelo and April Hood. The trio of nightlife denizens brings local AfroPop! events to venues around Charlotte every month. On Friday, April 18, they will scale up from the modest club events they’ve done in the past to a full-fledged block party when Afropop! hits Camp North End, the huge new art complex at 1776 Statesville Ave., for an event that runs from 6-8 p.m. Creative Loafing sat down with Afropop!’s logistics leader Ibeto — better known by his stage name DJ Kato — to chat with him about all the variables that go into making an AfroPop! experience a safe space for folks to get free. Creative Loafing: What’s that “Get Free” mantra all about? Ifeanyi Ibeto: When you go to events around Charlotte, you feel like you are going to be looked at in a particular type of way. You are constricted to the type of music you have to listen to. You have to dress a certain kind of way. Events are thought not to be fun unless you are confined to a particular set of unsaid rules. At AfroPop!, we wanted it to reflect how we are as individuals. We want you to come as you are. If you are wearing jeans, come to AfroPop! If you are wearing a dashiki, come to AfroPop! If you are wearing heels, you might not be able to dance but, no judgment, come to AfroPop! How did you link up with Eric Ndelo and April Hood? Eric is another brother who is firstgeneration [Congolese-American] that was really into the arts like I was. There are not too many of us first-generation Africans [Ibeto is Nigerian-American] that are so open to being artistic, because it is a taboo in our culture. When Ndelo was doing an event, he would invite me to come out and snap some photos. I would give him ideas and we would ping-pong ideas back and forth. April became a part of AfroPop! because she was one of the event managers of Ndelo’s cultural event Nappy Luv. She has a heart for the community. She works with nonprofits to help the homeless.

Can you take us back to the first Afropop! event at Apostrophe Lounge? It was June 10, 2016. We kind of expected only a little bit of interest. We had no idea African drummers would show up. We did not know what kind of community would show up. That event opened our eyes. What we initially thought would take us a year or two to build happened the first night. The Apostrophe Lounge was filled with people. Who comes to AfroPop! events? Our events attract a lot of dancers who normally don’t go out: those that don’t have a space where they can really do their thing and not get looked at like it is weird. We have dance crews that come out. We even have dance battles break out randomly. The essence of almost all dance is African, but on a granular level we have AfroBrazilian dance, Afro-Caribbean dance, Ivory Coast African dance, Kizomba dance, Soca and more. I am heavily involved in the dance community. We actually do outreach in the community and make ourselves one of them. How important is the music selection? The music is something we wanted to be a reflection of as many cultures as possible. Which is really really hard to do in one night or one event. We want it to be a unique mix of music that has never been heard before from all countries of the [African] diaspora, and also a reflection of all the experiences we have had. Eric has been to different countries in Africa many times. Me, I have been to Latin America a bunch of times and have influences from there. We want to give people a sonic experience that feels tribal and also gives an education component of where the music comes from and the significance of the music. Why are African drums such an important part of the experience? Drums in Africa are a way to open yourself up. When you hear drums live, your body naturally moves. Now it has evolved to where I take my drum and come off stage and say, “Hey, I am on the stage playing, but I am [also] with you guys.” I will just come off the stage and play drums in front of people and tell them to bang my drum to break the ice and get people moving and to get people to experience feeling free.

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 19

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD

AUGUST 17 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH John Alexander Jazz Trio (Blue Restaurant & Bar)

COUNTRY/FOLK Beavergrass Bluegrass Jam (Thirsty Beaver)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Le Bang (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Open Mic at Studio 13 (Studio 13, Cornelius) Carmen Tate (Eddie’s Seafood, Mooresville) Cann’d, Morganton, Warpath, The Boron Heist (The Station) Formula 5 (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Free karaoke night with Battleship and DJ Wyley B (Milestone) Girls Guns And Glory (The Evening Muse) Karaoke with DJ ShayNanigans (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Matt Minchew Duo (RiRa Irish Pub) Moses Jones, Kevin Marshall & The J Walkers (Petra’s) Pluto For Planet (Tin Roof) Tom Williams, Michael Stephens (Comet Grille) Throwback Thursdays: 80s and 90s Music (Morehead Street Tavern)

AUGUST 18 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazzy Fridays (Freshwaters Restaurant) Jackie O with the Groovemasters (Morehead Street Tavern) Jazz Room @ the Stage Door Theater: Phillip Whack plays John Coltrane (Stage Door Theater)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Steven Engler Band (Blue Restaurant & Bar)

COUNTRY/FOLK Luke Bryan, Brett Eldredge, Craig Campbell (PNC Music Pavilion) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

8/18 JASON SCAVONE 8/18 PORCH 40 9/6 BIRDTALKER 8/29 COMBS 9/8 WILL HOGE 9/17 ANDREW + LINDI ORTEGA 9/20 DEER TICK 9/29 SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS RUSS 10/5 LITHE QUID TEST 10/19 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER 20 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

SEND US DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Method (RiRa Irish Pub) DJ RWonz (RiRa Irish Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Earth, Wind & Fire, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers (Spectrum Center)

POP/ROCK Blakeney Summer Concert Series (Blakeney Shopping Center) Music Box Lunch (Romare Bearden Park) Brennagh Burns and Robin Benidict (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Deion Reverie, Thomas Patrick Maguire, Syrrup (Snug Harbor) Hectorina, SHEHEHE, Nerve Endings, Chase Warren & the H”mewreckers (The Courtroom, Rock Hill) Jason Scavone, Brit Drozda, Bless These Sounds Under The City (Visulite Theatre) Jitsu, Thirsty Curses, Cherbough Way (Petra’s) Kris Hitchcock (Tin Roof) Luke Bryan & Brett Eldredge (PNC Music Pavilion) Nate Randall (NoDa Brewing Company) Premium Sound One Year Birthday Bash: DJ Omelette Baum, Ghost Trees (The Station) Snatch the Snail, Natural Born Leaders, Nevernauts, Poor Pie (Milestone) Sounds on the Square: Gina Robinson and the Blumey Awards students (Spirit Square) Strong Maybe (RiRa Irish Pub) Thomas Patrick Maguire, Syrrup (Snug Harbor) The Wild Reeds, Kate Rhudy (The Evening Muse) The Wingnuts (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville) You Knew Me When (Birdsong Brewing Co.)

AUGUST 19 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Room @ the Stage Door Theater: Phillip Whack plays John Coltrane (Stage Door Theater)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Furia Tropikal (Cabo’s Mexican Cuisine & Cantina) Latin Night In Plaza Midwood - A Samba Social (Snug Harbor)

COUNTRY/FOLK Grand Shell Game (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Scott Brantley, Out of the Blue (Coyote Joe’s)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Jason Wiggs (RiRa Irish Pub) DJ Ragoza (RiRa Irish Pub) Squirt Day Party: Brenmar, Fabo, Goldyard, Deep 6 Division, Elevator Jay, Ahuf, J. Overcash, Jaboi B-Rab, Famous Jason, Edward Shouse

(Snug Harbor)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

SOUNDBOARD

Shannon Lee and Thomas Stainkamp Dueling Piano’s Night (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville)

The 90’s Party (Riverview Raw Bar & Chill)

AUGUST 22

POP/ROCK

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH

Blakeney Summer Concert Series (Blakeney Shopping Center) Colby Dobbs Band (The Evening Muse) Group Text, Cheem, Futurists, Taxing (Milestone) Jay Taylor (Tin Roof) Joe and The KGB (Vinyl Pi, Huntersville) Laura Thurston (Birdsong Brewing Co.) Los Acoustic Guys, MoFunGo (Petra’s) Mike Strauss Band (Comet Grill) Pluto For Planet (RiRa Irish Pub) Porch 40, Kick The Robot, The Orange Constant (Visulite Theatre) Social Distortion, Jade Jackson (The Fillmore) Staton-Bush Project, Party Battleship (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern)

AUGUST 20 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Brunch (RiRa Irish Pub)

DJ/ELECTRONIC

MUSIC

Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Morehead Tavern)

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) Lost Cargo: Tiki Social Club - Exotic Sounds by Bo White (Petra’s) Pluto For Planet (Tin Roof) Sharkmuffin, Wild Moon, StarBenders, Pleather Boys (Snug Harbor)

AUGUST 23 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH The Clarence Palmer Trio (Morehead Tavern)

DJ/ELECTRONIC

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

COUNTRY/FOLK

Monica (The Fillmore)

POP/ROCK Matchbox Twenty, Counting Crows, Rivers & Rust (PNC Music Pavilion) Wage War, Gideon, Varials (Neighborhood Theatre) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill)

AUGUST 21 HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Knocturnal (Snug Harbor) Stone Soul Mic Love (Freedom Factory @ Seeds) #MFGD Open Mic (Apostrophe Lounge)

POP/ROCK Carolina Shout with Ethan Uslan (Petra’s) Find Your Muse Open Mic with our good friend Cory Wells (The Evening Muse) Hectagons!, Shitstorm, Strategic Warheads (Milestone) 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)

THIS SATURDAY

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

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

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

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

COUNTRY/FOLK

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SATURDAY, SEPT 16

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Open mic w/ Jared Allen (Jack Beagles) Open Mic/Open Jam (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK Party in the Park (Romare Bearden Park) Brain Dead, Railgun, Warpath (Milestone) Jettison Five (RiRa Irish Pub, Charlotte) Karaoke with DJ Pucci Mane (Petra’s) Snug Harbor 10 Year Anniversary Celebration Residency: Modern Primitives, Amigo, Houston Brothers (Snug Harbor) Songwriter Open Mic @ Petra’s (Petra’s) Trivia & Karaoke Wednesdays (Tin Roof)

COMING SOON  The Veldt (August 25, Snug Harbor) Ryan Culwell (August 26, 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, 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)

SATURDAY,SEPT 23

MUSCADINE BLOODLINE WITH SPECIAL GUEST

BRANDON RAY

LIMITED ADVANCE $12 ALL OTHERS $15

SATURDAY, OCT 14

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WITH AND LIMITED ADVANCE $20 ALL OTHERS $25

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AUGUST 19 & 25 SEPT 2, 8, 15, 22 & 30

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CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 21

ARTS

FEATURE

IT’S A PHASE 3-10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 20. Free.

RITUAL PHOTOGRAPHY NIGHT 8-11 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22. Free. Royal Peasantry, 1318 A-11 Central Ave. 910-818-4286. royalpeasantry.com

DRUID CHIC Get your fantasy on at Royal Peasantry BY GREY REVELL

RUID

CHIC. Kick that description around in your head a moment. Does it evoke images of a hipster hobbit? Maybe you imagine a Natalie Dormer-type, half-elf supermodel gving you the cold stare as she steps out of a predawn dungeon to sneak a cigarette with her gorgeous and sullen squad. Just because you move in circles of sorcery or mysticism doesn’t mean you can’t look fucking great as you celebrate Beltane or cast runes, right? That was the question on my mind as I stepped into a Royal Peasantry event in Plaza Midwood on a rainy night in July. Royal Peasantry, if you don’t know, is a boutique and art salon dedicated to keeping Charlotte weird. On August 20, the shop will put on a free, all-day event called “It’s a Phase,” in honor of the coming total eclipse of the sun. DJs will provide music and LaDavius Carson will hold a new age salon to honor paradigmn shifts. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon will serve as the soundtrack for a yoga class. And there will be much more, including a hula-hoop workshop, aerial acrobatics and lots of free art, all crammed in between 3 and 10 p.m. Two days later, the shop will hold its regular Royal Peasantry Ritual Photography Night, where you can go in, dress like an archteype, have your picture snapped, and party like it’s 1599. But back to that rainy night in July, when I attended my first Ritual Photography Night. The storm had come quick, like my ex-wife’s temper. The sky outside the village of Belmont when I started out earlier in the afternoon had been cloudy but friendly, lit hot pink by a beautiful Carolina dusk. As I got on I-85 and headed toward the city, though, it was instantly evident something darker was coming. The Charlotte skyline stood against a charcoal horizon, puncuated by slashes of lightning touching the ground like the spit of dueling wizards. Sensing the approaching drama, the radio station played that old Doors song about breaking on through to the other side. It felt like I was about to do just that. By the time I reached Plaza Midwood, the neighborhood was barely visible out the window, which had turned into a living Patrick Glover painting, squishing together the street with the brake lights on the car in front of me like a river. A tree fell in front of me, and I narrowly missed it, dodging fallen construction cones to try to keep it between the lines. When I finally stepped into Royal Peasantry, everyone inside seemed oblivious to the apocalypse outside. Folks milled about, glasses of red wine in hand, admiring each other’s fab, fantasy-inspired gear. I made my way around the party, eventually meeting Royal Peasantry’s 38-year-old owner Danielle 22 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

Miller, who’s also the mastermind behind the store’s parent company, More Than Mammal. Miller started the company when she was just 19, combining her desire to protect endagered animals with her love of mythology, tarot and the fantasy fiction of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance series. Miller has designed clothing since she was a child, and formed her company to give all of her passions one cozy home. She opened the first Royal Peasantry in Asheville in 2007, but didn’t want to call it More Than Mammal. “Royal Peasantry was just a better name for a boutique store — More Than Mammal sounded like a pet shop,” she told me.

RAISED IN in western Pennsylvania, Miller remembers designing clothes as early as fourth grade. “I learned how to sew at 4H — that’s how country I grew up,” she said with a laugh. Her first costume was an olive drab catsuit, inspired by SyFy Channel weirdness, and by 19 she had started More Than Mammal as a vehicle for her creativity and activism. In her mid-20s, she found herself in New Mexico, where she taught sewing to locals at a community center and had a daughter, Sophia, and son, Gyan. In 2006, though, tragedy changed Miller’s life. Her son’s father, Stevie McLaurin, died in a car accident on Thanksgiving Day. She was distraught and more than a little lost. The following year, on March 16, she had a vision. McLaurin appeared to Miller in a dream and told her to take the kids and go to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her relationship with mysticism had always been something Miller could rely on, so she wasn’t about to ignore this message. Within six weeks, Miller was in Asheville, and it was the perfect move. “I’ve never been more blessed.” she said. At that point, More than Mammals had to become more than a vanity project or teenage ideal. So, with help from a few investors that remain healvily involved in the company, Royal Peasantry was conceived as a boutique, performance space and safe haven for artists and designers. It became an art collective that would design much of its couture from found materials and not waste a single scrap of leather or cloth. Ultimately, it was a place where Miller’s passion for clothing design, environmental activist and arcetypical fantasy all could thrive. By early 2017, the success of Royal Peasantry in Asheville gave Miller the cache to expand her enterprise to a new new location, and she chose Plaza Midwood in Charlotte. The local store opened in April, with further plans for a “mobile boutique” also in the works. Patti Byrd, the manager of the Charlotte store, began working at the Asheville location

PHOTO BY DANIELLE MILLER

The author, Grey Revell, transformed into a prophet. on a whim. “I started as a production assistant,” said Byrd, 35, her face wreathed in feather dreamcatch earrings “I came in one afternoon and thought, ‘This place is too cool.’” It was Byrd, 35, who recommended the move to Plaza Midwood.

IT WAS a smart move. At Royal Peasantry’s

July Ritual Photography event, Byrd led me through beaded curtains, past some folks stylishly sporting horns, and into a main room where DJ Collectr, who spins at Snug Harbor, was cranking Hall and Oates. There, other party denizens lounged about in leather jerkins, looking like Canterbury Tales by way of Common Market. Through some more beads, into a small, well-lit photo studio, 24-year-old performance artist Victoria Jane posed in full forest fairy mode, looking like she could hold her own against a band of thieves or a lecherous friar. Miller turned to me: “So you’re gonna take some pictures right?” She does not strike me as someone who takes no for an answer, so how could I refuse? A few minutes later, decked out in leather pouches and a headress that evoked the Arabian Nights, I stood in front of the camera. For effect, I asked for a feather from the shelf and used it as a makeshift quill.

The transformation was complete: I was no longer a writer — I was the writer. Perhaps I would be penning prophecy, a la Gibran, or simply meditating on the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Miller quietly directed me to look into the lens as she snapped a few photos. I slipped into character — how could you not? — gazing into the azure curtain of a Mediterranean night, and watching horses run into the moon. When I stepped out of the studio, a couple smoothboys dressed as birds danced to Collectr, who was spinning the Bjork song “Bachelorette,” in which the Icelandic nymph sings, “I’m a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl.” A guy named Brock, straight out of central casting as the “Strapping Dude” emerged from the dressing room, looking like Alan Quartermain blended with House Lannister, and sporting a blunderbuss, as though he was going to protect Forest Fairy from a gaggle of screaming pygmy’s in a Frank Frazetta painting. “Where do I go?” he asked someone. You’re at Royal Peasantry, dude. You can go anywhere you want.

QC Canine Design

Where Pets are Treated Like Royalty

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ARTS

ARTSPEAK

POP GOES THE ANKLE And up goes Osiris Rain’s Stella Artois mural in NoDa BY GREY REVELL

SHORTLY AFTER Charlotte artist Osiris Rain was tapped by the international brewing company Stella Artois to paint a promotional mural on the side of a building at 35th Street and North Davidson, the 31-year-old decided to unwind one afternoon with a little skateboarding. “I figured I’m going to go out and enjoy myself before I really put my head down and start working on the design,” Rain remembers. Bad idea. He cracked his ankle in two. “I was doing a pretty easy stretch, and — it was a fluke,” Rain says. “All my weight was displaced, and something went in the wrong direction.” Luckily, Rain had a few weeks of design and prep time to prepare for the mural, so a cast was put on his leg and he was able to get the feel of working in it. What’s more, a friend, who’d also suffered an ankle injury, gave Rain an interesting gift. “It was a sort of pirate cast that folds the leg up and looks like a peg leg,” the artist says. “So there’s a couple of photos floating around of me on the ladder with this sort of peg leg

and a bright pink cast.” Creative Loafing caught up with Rain in his NoDa studio, surrounded by casts of classical faces and the original canvas of An Unbearable Darkness, the artist’s 2015 experimental, Carravagio-esque study of his father that now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, Spain. Creative Loafing: The tale of how you created this mural in the midst of blinding agony is already urban legend. How’d you do it? Osiris Rain: I didn’t have a choice. [laughs] I had six days. I started by blasting the entire wall out with a sprayer. I was up on the ladder, in a peg leg, for the entire time, from July 15th to the 21st. That was Charlotte’s hottest week this year, right? Oh my God. [shakes his head] The heat index was like 115 degrees. You can’t drink enough water or have a big enough hat on. It was a nightmare. And then add to it this sweaty cast, which probably would have made the

Osiris Rain’s NoDa mural. best hobo stew by the time it came off. It was just brutal. I got about three-quarters of the way through, then I got a really bad heat stroke about three days into the process. So I had to call in some help from my brother, Adam Schaefer, and another muralist, Nick Napolitano. I still had to climb ladders, but I didn’t have to go 100 miles an hour for 16 hours a day. Usually, a week is no problem for a mural that size, but just the complication of being broken, that made it not so easy. Between you, Napolitano and a few others, NoDa is looking great. Any future

PHOTO BY OSIRIS RAIN

plans to keep that up? We’re trying to create a community pool [for] a local business or an individual [who] can’t afford a mural. It’d be like a GoFundMe, where you can put in $20 [or] $100 and create this community pool for the next mural. We got some pushback on the Stella mural about an international brand being put into the arts neighborhood, which is understandable. It’s also understandable that artists have to eat. Visit clclt.com for a more in-depth version of this interview.

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

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

Tayla Solomon, Cori Grainger and Blessin Giraldo in Step (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

ARTS

FILM

STEP LIVELY Documentary makes all the right moves BY MATT BRUNSON

THE NEW DOCUMENTARY Step (***

out of four) focuses on the members of an inner-city Baltimore high school step team, but what’s most surprising about the film is how comparatively little time is spent on the dancing. To be sure, there are numerous sequences in which we watch the girls practice, and of course there’s a big dance competition at the end. But the majority of the picture examines the lives of these young women away from the hoofing, centering instead on their family lives and their efforts to graduate and be accepted into college. It’s not unreasonable, then, to assume that the title doesn’t refer to their chosen form of dancing as much as it refers to the steps each girl must take if she wants to break free from her surroundings and escape into the world at large. The picture primarily focuses on Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger and Tayla Solomon, three seniors at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women. Cori is the brainy one (she’s hoping to get into Johns Hopkins on a full scholarship) while Tayla is the sardonic one (she’s constantly rolling her eyes at her mom, a

corrections officer with as much boundless energy as any of these girls). As for Blessin, she’s the founder of the step team as well as the center of the movie. Bright and beautiful, she lives for dance but has trouble applying herself in other areas. With plummeting grades and a mother who doesn’t always come through for her, she’s the one most in peril of not moving forward, and the later scenes in which she realizes she may get left behind as her peers are receiving their college acceptance letters pack an emotional wallop. More straightforward than many other documentaries about kids in competition, Step isn’t as richly detailed or narratively mutable as something like Hoop Dreams or Spellbound. But by focusing on the hopes and aspirations of three distinct individuals — and by raising the stakes via opening the film with the 2015 police-sanctioned-andcourt-approved slaying of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray — the movie posits that, while artistic expression may be a way of life, the environment in which it’s often practiced may be more subject to matters of life and death. BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | 25

ENDS

MODERN EROTIC

ENDS

NIGHTLIFE

WHO’S JEALOUS OF WHOM?

SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS

Learning to let go of a toxic feeling

Charlotte is getting its first axe-throwing facility

LATELY I’VE been thinking about how to

idea to pregame before going to make a LADIES IN TUNE with pop culture fool of myself. And before you knew it, I these days have every reason to find axe lost the nerve when others would drop out throwing sexy. If you don’t enjoy watching and decide not to go. Last week, however, I Rick re-kill zombies with his hatchet on was on a mission — probably because they The Walking Dead, you’ve surely seen Jason posted a sweet camo hat that reminded me Momoa of Game of Thrones fame tossing axes how much swag I’d been missing out on. on the Insta. Fans of either can rejoice, axe I made it to Hattie’s around 8:30 p.m. throwing has arrived in the 704. My coworker and I thought about getting A few weeks ago I started seeing flyers for in line but then realized how long said line a pop-up axe throwing event. I immediately was. Also, I realized how tipsy I was and thought of all the lumberjack snacks we’d decided that it probably wasn’t the smartest stumble upon who would sweep us off our idea to try chucking a heavy weapon across feet and take us to a log cabin in the a room in that state. Instead, I opted mountains with an infinity pool. I for chatting up one of the owners started asking around for more about the entire concept — and info on the eventand found this time, at least, I warned out about Lumberjaxe. the person I was talking to Lumberjaxe will about my tipsiness. be Charlotte’s first You probably have axe-throwing facility. 1,000 questions at this Set to open this fall, point. So did I. The first: they’ve decided to let Where did this idea come Charlotteans get a taste from? I was blown away before the grand opening. to find out that this isn’t Did I mention the venue a new concept. This might AERIN SPRUILL will start off as BYOB? That’s not be news to you, but again, right, put your PBRs on ice and do I need to pull out my black card? Axe throwing is a competitive when you’re ready for another, sport in which participants throw axes at someone will bring it right to you. targets. While it started in Canada, the sport Since I started following them, the free has solidified its place in the U.S., there’s pop-ups have been happening pretty much even a National Axe Throwing Federation! once a week at venues like NoDa Company The next question, that everyone wants Store, Common Market and Hattie’s Tap to know, is it really a good idea to get boozed & Tavern. The events usually start around up and throw axes? I mean … I know a few 6 p.m., so naturally it seemed like a good people that would throw an axe at someone they don’t like “accidentally.” He laughed, and assured us that the pros instructing throwers are trained to spot behavior that could lead to “an accident.” Whether they’re protecting an ex from an axe or the thrower from a bounce back, the Lumberjaxe team is prepared to handle it all. When the facility opens in Belmont, customers will pay $20 per hour of play. There will be many more target bays than the two you’ll usually find at pop-up events, which means much shorter lines. All the equipment, outside of closed toe shoes, will be provided and the pros will still offer the same guidance that they are now. Throwers will have to follow NATF regulations and yes, you’ll be able to drink in between throws. Meet sexy friends So if you’re interested in trading in who really get your vibe... your set of darts for an axe, here’s your chance. Follow Lumberjaxe on Instagram or Try FREE: 704-731-0113 Facebook for updates on where the next popMore Local Numbers: 1-800-811-1633 up will be or when the facility will officially be open. Who knows? You may discover a new hobby or a new main squeeze … either vibeline.com 18+ way, I promise you’ll have a good time.

tendencies, driven by a desire for happiness describe jealousy, especially when it comes and stability, are what lead to unhappiness. to sex and love. It’s a hot, visceral feeling, Possessiveness and jealousy push those we exacerbated by the Southern summer heat. love away. When you look at a baby, Kondili says, Your heart is wrenched, like a rag full of water, and you feel your pulse pushing blood you’re not wondering what that baby can do for you. Instead, you’re full of pure love — the through your body. Crimes of passion often seem outrageous. kind of selfless love that we should ideally feel How could you let yourself end another life or for everyone. But some of Kondili’s examples ruin your own in a temporary fit of feeling? of how this selfless love might work in a But when I feel a jealous twinge, constricting relationship defy logic — or logic as we know my heart like a snake, I start to understand. it, at least. “If your partner showed up one day and Drunk on that cocktail of love and hate, logic said, ‘I love someone else,’ and you truly loved loses its grip. them and wanted them to be happy, Elvita Kondili is a licensed you would let them go. You would professional counselor and want them to be happy, and you the education program would be happy for them.” coordinator at Charlotte’s Kondili says that when Kadampa Meditation she explains this idea, most Center, where she’s people scoff. But there been teaching and are easier ways to practice meditating for two selfless love and let go of years. From a Buddhist jealousy. One is to get in perspective, she says, the habit of considering your a common mistake partner’s perspective. Two is to believe that our ALLISON fundamental components of the happiness and unhappiness BRADEN meditation that Kondili practices are dependent on external are wisdom and compassion, both of factors. But these are states of which can be applied here. mind, and their source is internal, “In a situation where someone’s going off to she says. Jealousy, too, is a state of mind, and as anyone who’s experienced it knows, the spend time with their friends, we think, ‘They don’t care about us, they might be unfaithful, feeling only works to make us unhappy. “There’s no benefit to a mental state of or they may be off looking at someone else.’ jealousy,” Kondili says. “And if there’s no And this may or may not be true, but the way it benefit to something, wouldn’t you want to appears to us is reality,” Kondili explains. Compassion, on the other hand, can mean eliminate it? Wouldn’t you want to get rid of simply remembering that the other person is it if it causes you unhappiness and misery?” But, like finishing Infinite Jest or cooking like you. They want happiness, too, and they the perfect soufflé, getting rid of jealousy is don’t want to suffer. Compassion is making easier said than done. Part of the difficulty is an ongoing effort to encounter everyone with that it may require a fundamental shift in how the same unadulterated love you feel for a you approach relationships. Our experience baby. (Or maybe, in my case, my cat.) Another Buddhist principle is nonof the world tends to be self-centered, which often manifests in how we build relationships attachment. “Whether it’s one partner or two with others. We look for what will benefit partners or your house, your car, or your job, us, what will make us happy. As a result, our the idea is to change the inside relationship relationships are not with the other person, with them so we’re not trying to possess them, control them, or rely on them too but with our idea of them. “It’s about the relationship you have with heavily to make us happy,” Kondili explains. Wisdom, compassion and nonthis person in your own mind. So if your relationship is, ‘I want to own you, possess attachment can seem like ideals, floating like you, I want to control you, I want you to do clouds, untethered to the emotional mess what suits me,’ this is your relationship with of everyday life. Perhaps I’ll never be able to this person from the inside,” Kondili says. joyfully bid my partner farewell as they take “Even if they do what you want them to do off with a paramour, but the first step toward for a little bit, it’s just temporary. Eventually letting go of jealousy, Kondili says, is simple. “The main message is that being happy — something else will come up and they’re going to do something that you’re not going to like having fulfilling relationships — is an inside because you’re attached to how you want job. It’s not something that anyone else can do for you,” she says. “The key is to work on them to behave.” Paradoxically, these controlling yourself.” 26 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

ENDS

CROSSWORD

M-T SET ACROSS

1 Comic Viking 6 It licenses lawyers 14 Habit-kicking programs 20 Florida city 21 It made Razr phones 22 Take a -- (give a go) 23 Was glad to stick around? 25 New Orleans university 26 Outdated 27 Entertainer Zadora 29 Decrees 30 Grouch’s cry 31 Monotonous predictions from mind readers? 36 Get all sudsy 40 Rho follower 41 Big beer buy 42 Colorful bird helping out? 46 Pop group -- Tuesday 49 Untimely? 50 Hoop dangler 51 Conk 52 Powdery 54 Just make, with “out” 55 Book leaf 57 Snap a pic of an animated character? 61 See 63-Across 63 With 61-Across, Yankee who won the 1997 Silver Slugger Award 64 Nels or Nellie on “Little House on the Prairie” 65 Massive coup? 69 1980s game consoles 72 Do, --, fa, sol, la, ti, do 73 Oratorical art 77 Steering rod on a purple dinosaur’s boat? 80 Harvard rival 81 Sch. URL ending 82 Consecrate 83 Suffix with Vietnam 84 Slalom, e.g. 85 Distance unit in astron. 86 According to 87 A trio of fuddy-duddy ducks? 93 Sandal, e.g. 95 Go get 96 Late, great crossword puzzle writer Merl 97 Buying candy for trickor-treaters, e.g.?

102 “Tsk!” 103 Edgar -- Poe 104 -- -Blo fuse 105 Deprived of parents 110 Bread units 112 Flooring unit that can be installed in about 7% of an hour? 117 Intertwine 118 Distribution 119 Hair tint stuff 120 Like freshly baked 110-Across 121 Spruced up 122 Like a cliff

DOWN

1 Twinkie alternative 2 Hail -3 Spaces 4 Rival of Iams 5 Relative of a trolley 6 Rocker Patty 7 Lug along 8 -- minimum 9 Craggy crest 10 Go astray 11 Young male, in hip-hop 12 A, in Hebrew 13 Halves of diameters 14 Q-U link 15 Liszt works 16 Many a salt, chemically 17 Manual calculators 18 Swahili’s subfamily 19 Geyser spew 24 Hopped 28 Say “OK” to 31 Brad of films 32 Cpl.’s boss 33 Singer Sumac 34 Isn’t unable 35 Road goo 36 City of witch trials 37 Japanese port city 38 Daisy lookalike 39 Flaky treat 40 Allergic reaction 43 Wrath 44 “I could write --” 45 Obtained 46 General -- chicken 47 “Am -- early?” 48 NFL’s Swann 52 Strike out 53 In -- (gestating) 55 Sprites 56 Edgy

57 Sword stuff 58 Blackjack request 59 Studio alert 60 Shanty 62 Aquatic birds 66 1957 Bobbettes hit 67 Singer Badu 68 Atheist Madalyn Murray -69 “Dancing Queen” band 70 Like a giant 71 District 74 Label again 75 Rustic verse 76 Jinx 78 Small giggles 79 Medit. nation 84 Use a straw 85 Grazing spot 87 AAA offering 88 Young newt 89 Salty waters 90 Gallon divs. 91 Spew forth 92 Restraints 93 Works hard 94 Candid 97 “Roots” novelist Alex 98 By oneself 99 Camel kin 100 Spritelike 101 Gallows loop 102 Evened (up) 105 Years ago 106 Toiling away 107 -- -to-five 108 In addition 109 Low in pitch 111 Reticent 113 D.C.’s home 114 Road furrow 115 West in film 116 Small hotel

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I’m always suspicious when two (or more) My boyfriend of eight months, K, and people claim to be deeply in love after dating I are polyamorous. We started the for a short period of time, BELOVED, and relationship on that foot, and for a eight months qualifies as a short period of while I was the partner he spent the time. Premature declarations of love — to most time with. There have been ups say nothing of premature commitments — and downs, but overall our relationship up the emotional stakes, which can place a is solid and loving. strain on a newish relationship (or a trio of However, recently we both started them) that it may not be strong enough to dating the same woman, L, and they bear. Not yet. have been spending more time together You’ll feel a lot less anxious about this than with me due to my work schedule. relationship, BELOVED, if you make a They both reassure me that they love conscious effort to lower the stakes. In other me and care for me deeply, but I am words: Dial it way back, girl. an anxiously-attached person and You’ve been dating K for a little more sometimes I have panic attacks when than half a year, and you’ve been dating L for they spend more time with others/ whatever “recently” adds up to in a world where themselves and fear that they’re eight months equals LTR. It’ll reduce going to leave me. I’m working your anxiety levels and soothe your on becoming more secure insecurities if you tell yourself via books on cognitive you aren’t committed to K behavioral therapy, and and L as life partners. Not I’m looking into inyet. This is the beginning person therapy. of both these relationships. This is my first All you’re committed to serious relationship, right now is continuing but not his (I’m 22, to get to know K and L. he’s 35). And while You’re committed to dating K has been super them, you’re committed to patient with me, my DAN SAVAGE exploring where this might go, worry and grasping is you’re committed to enjoying a point of friction in the your time with them, however long relationship. K has told me it lasts. But you are not committed to he doesn’t want to be solely them. Not yet. responsible for my sexual satisfaction Committing yourself to therapy is a good and my need for constant reassurances idea, BELOVED. Everyone should commit that he cares. The anxiety has been to working on their emotional and mental flaring up most strongly concerning health. You and your therapist can start by sex — we’re all switches, and K and L reevaluating whether a poly relationship are both professional Dominants. I feel is right for you in practice. In theory, you neglected if K doesn’t penetrate me but understand poly and you may want a poly he penetrates L, or if L gets to penetrate relationship. (Particularly if it’s the only K via a strap-on and I don’t. He’s very way you can have K.) But as someone with good about voicing what he desires, anxiety issues and hang-ups about all sex while I’m learning to speak up despite acts being divided up equally, poly may not feeling like I’m just being needy and be right for you, or it may not be right for grasping again. you right now. I love both my partners, but I’ve After a little therapy (or maybe a lot), been feeling sexually neglected — and who knows? (Also: Trying to portion out with a HIGH sex drive, it’s been quite sex between three people like you would ice painful. This is my first “trio rodeo” and cream for three small kids — making sure I really want to make it work — I’ve seen each kid gets the exact same number and a future with K for a while (the I-wantsize of scoops — is unrealistic. Sometimes your-children kind), and L is joining you’ll get more; sometimes you’ll get less. those future visions. Eyeing those scoops too closely is only going How can I find a way to create more to generate conflict.) opportunities for sexy-time and not You’ve been at this rodeo for only eight ruin it with anxiety attacks? months, BELOVED, and if these problems BDSM ENTHUSIASTIC LOVER ON VOYAGE 4 are already coming up, it might not be EMOTIONAL DURABILITY your attachment style or your anxiety. It’s possible this rodeo isn’t for you.

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FOR ALL SIGNS August is an eclipse season this year. The full moon of the 7th and the new moon of August 21 are both eclipsed. In ancient times eclipses were believed frightening, heralding negative omens, especially in regions of their visibility. Contemporary astrologers now perceive these seasons as periods that relieve critical mass, with a purpose similar to that of a small earthquake. For many of us this month there will be an experience of manifestation or illumination about situations that have been long brewing. It is a time to face facts, but not all those facts are frightening or negative. Some people experience positive results of past effort during eclipse periods. Keep in mind that eclipse periods are “seasons” and not to be read strictly for the date given. The effects of eclipses can go on for weeks. ARIES This eclipse pattern emphasizes your progeny or other personally creative births. Romantic ventures will be intensely emotional and self-revealing. You will be learning a few lessons in discernment concerning friendships and associations that no longer serve you well. TAURUS Matters concerning your family and property will be accented for the next 18 months. Old problems in relationships, even with the deceased, will surface for cleansing and healing. A new family member may enter the scene, or you may begin to spend more time with family in general.

LIBRA The new eclipse season will be

opening your mind and heart to accept a larger circle of friends. You may become a leader or a strong supporter of a community network which has shared ideals. Certainly you will continue to have the friendships you have built in the past. However, your attention may be shifted to goals greater than your own.

SCORPIO The new 18 month series of

eclipses will bring a certain amount of intensity in the arenas of career (work in the world) and also home, hearth and family. You will be stretching your worldly boundaries to serve a new group of people. Family relationships will include one loss and one gain during these months.

SAGITTARIUS

Legal, ethical or educational issues will be emphasized by the new 18 month series of eclipses. Travel will be punctuated, whether it via body, mind, or spirit. Exposure to those of different backgrounds or cultures opens your heart and expands your philosophy. A challenge concerning siblings, roommates, or neighbors may press you to seek a Higher Road.

GEMINI The accent of this eclipse cycle will be on travel, education, care of vehicles and relationships to siblings, roommates, neighbors, or others who daily traverse your life. Habit patterns of thought will be brought to consciousness so negative thinking can be corrected. You will be introduced to new practical life skills. Or you may be teaching skills to others.

CAPRICORN This new eclipse pattern will emphasize issues of sexuality, intimacy, and material accumulation. Reorganization of debt, investments and your estate may be in progress. You may become more conscious than usual about existential matters related to life, death, and what is on “the other side” of normal, waking consciousness.

CANCER During this new 18 month series

month series will draw attention to your partnerships. Negative patterns from your childhood history may need to be uncovered, repaired or removed to allow your growth into a more mature relationship. Circumstances may encourage you to allow your partner to lead, while you take a supporting role.

of eclipses you will be learning to value yourself in new ways. Alongside of that comes education in the management of money and other resources, such as time and energy. There will be less assistance from others in these arenas, but you are creating these resources for yourself.

LEO THE LION (July 22--Aug 22) The

lunar eclipse described in the lead paragraph occurs in your Sun’s sign. Circumstances around this period, even for weeks or months, press you to encounter yourself in relationship to others. If your behavior is authentically “from the heart,” you will receive positive attention. If otherwise, you will hear about that as well.

VIRGO This eclipse is in your twelfth house of the unconscious mind. It suggests you 30 | AUG. 17 - AUG. 23, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

need to explore what is going on with you beneath your usual routines. Helpful tools could be: counseling or therapy, hypnosis, dream study and/or journaling. Find out what your unconscious is creating. If you don’t like it, address that and redirect its patterns.

AQUARIUS The eclipses of this 18

PISCES This Leo eclipse pressures you to

concentrate on improvement of work related relationships and health maintenance. Diet, exercise and improvement of physical regimen will become imperative. Honing your management systems in personal and work arenas is necessary to create order in your daily work routine. Interested in a personal horoscope? Reach Vivian Carol at 704-366-3777 for private psychotherapy or astrology appointments, or visit her at www.horoscopesbyvivian.com.

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