2017 Issue 31 Creative Loafing Charlotte by Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | SEP. 21 - 27, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 31

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EDITORIAL

NEWS EDITOR • Ryan Pitkin rpitkin@clclt.com FILM CRITIC • Matt Brunson mattonmovies@gmail.com THEATER CRITIC • Perry Tannenbaum perrytannenbaum@gmail.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS • Corbie Hill, Erin Tracy-Blackwood, Vivian Carol, Charles Easley, Allison Braden, Page Leggett, Alison Leininger, Sherrell Dorsey, Dan Savage, Aerin Spruill, Chuck Shepherd, Jeff Hahne, Samir Shukla, Courtney Mihocik, Debra Renee Seth, Vanessa Infanzon, Ari LeVaux

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PHOTO BY JOACHIM CEULEMANS.

Daniel Levin teams up with Charlotte-based dancer Audrey Baran at Petra’s on Sept. 23.

We put out weekly

NEWS&CULTURE DISPATCHES FROM ‘THE OTHER CHARLOTTE’ Four women of

color team up to give a voice to the voiceless BY RYAN PITKIN 7 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 10 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN 11 NEWS OF THE WEIRD

FOOD KEEPING THINGS FRESH Abugida family continues to expand with new Ethiopian grocery

BY RYAN PITKIN

14 16

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

MUSIC SOLO CRUISE Sugar Glyder frontman Daniel Howie is back, now making sweet, tasty music as Mouth Sounds

BY MARK KEMP 20 SOUNDBOARD

ARTS&ENT FACE-MELTING FURY ‘American Idiot’ is a rockin’ labor of love from Actor’s Theatre

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM 24 FALL FILM FRENZY BY MATT BRUNSON

ODDS&ENDS 26 SALOME’S STARS 27 CROSSWORD 28 SAVAGE LOVE BY DAN SAVAGE 30 NIGHTLIFE BY AERIN SPRUILL

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COVER DESIGN BY DANA VINDIGNI

CLCLT.COM | SEP. 21 - 27, 2017 VOL. 31, NO. 31

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VIEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

WHERE WERE YOU ON 9/20? Voices from the ‘Other Charlotte’ WHERE WERE YOU at 4 p.m. on Tuesday,

Are you satisfied with life? Are you happygo-lucky? Are you blessed? Are you fortunate? September 20, 2016? Were you picking up your kids from Are you spritual but not religious? Are you middle school in south Charlotte? Were you concerned but don’t like to get too involved? Are you privileged? in an Uptown office building making dinner Or are you The Other Charlotte? plans with a colleague? Were you headed out In this week’s cover story, news editor to have a craft beer in NoDa? Maybe you were inside your home at the Ryan Pitkin talks to four women — Patrice Village at College Downs apartment complex. Funderburg, Jasmine Hines, Linda Hill and Did you hear the shots? Did you see the police? amalia deloney — whose mission is to give voice to The Other Charlotte. The four have Did you know Keith Lamont Scott? Where were you by 8 p.m., after word had founded The Real Majority, which over the past spread across the city that police had shot and few months has started filming commentary from 100 people of color living in marginalized killed Mr. Scott? communities throughout the city and who Were you preparing dinner for your represent voices that are rarely heard on panel family in Matthews? Were you talking discussions or Facebook threads about life in football with a friend at Tavern on the post-Keith Lamont Scott Charlotte. Tracks? Were you headed over to see “We were all doing work in different areas Campdogzz at Snug Harbor? and it was clear that there were communities Maybe you had scrawled “Black Lives that were impacted in different ways,” Matter” on a sign and were making deloney tells Pitkin in “Dispatches your way to the Village at College from ‘The Other Charlotte,’” Downs apartment complex, on page 8. “We come from where some 100 other the same communities and people had begun to gather populations, but at the to express their anger, same time, because of our fear, frustration and rage. professional jobs, we’re I was in my apartment all in spaces all the time in Richmond, California, where those people who across the bay from San are impacted aren’t in the Francisco, reading my decision making.” social media feed, wanting The commentary in the to be closer to my friends MARK KEMP videos of people who are not back home in Charlotte. “in the decision making” ranges One poignant comment from from anger to, perhaps surprisingly, Facebook friend Quent Young, a support for Charlotte police. Charlotte rapper, sent a chill up my spine: But mostly, it’s frustration. “I pick my son up every other day from that One young black man at a YMCA basketball same street (Old Concord Road), feet away from where everything happened. I drop my court says he’s seen no palpable change in his son off every morning at school. So you mean part of the city since the shooting. “It’s still to tell [me something] as simple as letting my the same,” he says. “White cops harassing us, son ride the bus and getting off work early to me, black males, so nothing’s changed.” A food vendor in west Charlotte says he’s pick him up could lead to my death?” And there was this, from OnQ Productions skeptical of change. “I would love to say more founder Quentin Talley: “I pray the strength has changed,” he says. “It sure the hell needs of all my brothers and sisters in Charlotte to. People don’t have nothing, and it’s getting today, especially those who work in corporate worse. I hear a lot of, ‘We’re trying,’ but I’m America. If you feel someone even look like tired of try. We need do.” The Real Majority would like to turn the they about to say something ignorant or bout to come sideways, whether you can sing or Titanic-sized imbalance of voices heard in not, look them dead in the eye and at the top Charlotte around so that The Other Charlotte’s of your lungs just burst into ‘Lift Every Voice feelings and frustrations and perspectives and and Sing’ or ‘What’s Going On’ or ‘Formation’ ideas are heard and taken seriously. “Our root belief is that the power is with or ‘1960 What’ or ‘Say It Loud’ or ‘Mississippi the people,” Hines tells Pitkin. “But if the Goddamn.’” And this, from CL’s Kia Moore, who wrote people don’t have a platform for their voices simply, “I just cannot watch the videos of my to be heard, then it’s always submerged by the people being shot by the blood-stained hands of predominant narrative.” Where were you on September 20, 2016? the people sworn to protect us. I will eventually Were you driving over to the Quail Hollow watch them, but I just can’t right now.” Where you were and what you were doing country club? Were you being pulled over by or thinking or writing or saying a year ago this police on Rozzelles Ferry Road? MKEMP@CLCLT.COM week depends on what Charlotte you represent.

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them to share whether they’re comfortable with that police presence — or lack thereof. The idea came from deloney, who does similar storytelling exercises at her Co-Learning for Action events. It’s a small example of how the four women have been working together on each of their usually separate projects. “We’re badass on our own, but the collective — and this happens in business and in industry, right? — it’s a merger,” Funderburg said. She hopes the Real Majority video project will help change a narrative perpetuated by city leadership and the media. “I’m annoyed by mainstream media grabbing, with vice grips, the narrative,” she said. “Redefining language, or releasing videos of the protests a week before the oneyear anniversary to remind people, ‘No, you should be afraid of these people, I don’t care if you see them on panels.’ Like, no. Just no.”

COVERSTORY

NEWS

DISPATCHES FROM ‘THE OTHER CHARLOTTE’ Four women of color team up to give a voice to the voiceless RYAN PITKIN

FOR AMALIA DELONEY, storytelling is a

ELOW CLINTON CHAPEL

A.M.E. Zion Church in west Charlotte on a recent Thursday night, a group of about 15 people stood in a line. One by one, they went down the line sharing stories about their experiences with policing. The vibe was that of so many support groups around the country, but these people weren’t gathered in a church basement because they were victims or addicts, they were there to learn and build community. Educate to Engage is a free, six-week class based on Michelle Alexander’s bestselling book The New Jim Crow. Patrice Funderburg launched the discussion group last year as a one-off, but after the Keith Lamont Scott shooting and the community response that followed, she decided she’d continue the work. Now, Funderburg is one of four community organizers who have joined together to form The Real Majority, a network that aims to lift up the community members the women have worked with in separate endeavors over the years and give them a voice in discussions that have taken place since the Charlotte Uprising. Over the last couple of months, Funderburg and the three other founders of The Real Majority — Jasmine Hines, Linda Hill and amalia deloney — have been collecting video of Charlotte residents to get a feel for what, if anything, has changed for people in Charlotte’s more marginalized communities in the year since the Keith Scott shooting. The group hopes to give voice to a population that is often overlooked in the panel discussions that have taken place since the Uprising. “We were all doing work in different areas and it was clear that there were communities that were impacted in different ways,” says deloney, who also founded the Co-Learning for Action Project, an education project aimed at engaging the community. “We come from the same communities and populations, but at the same time, because of our professional jobs, we’re all in spaces all the time where those people who are impacted aren’t in the decision making. And 8 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

The skyline of Uptown from the 5 Points area in west Charlotte. so we wanted to start centering this idea that there’s a large and growing population in this city who really is the majority, and yet they are not at the table for decisions.” The women hope to upload 100 videos of residents discussing what’s changed since the Keith Scott shooting. They have currently posted more than 20 of them. The women hope the project will act as a platform for the concerns of residents who are too often left out of decision-making processes in Charlotte. “Our root belief is that the power is with the people, but if the people don’t have a platform for their voices to be heard, then it’s always submerged by the predominant narrative,” said Hines, owner of The Inspower Agency, whose mission is to inspire and empower its clients. “So we’re giving the power back to the people through their own voice and their own strengths.” Opinions vary among videos currently posted, but one theme that emerges is a frustration with the lack of progress made in Charlotte since last September, despite plenty of discussion and dialogue about inequity and other issues in the city. One younger black man vents his frustration from a YMCA basketball court. “Nothing, absolutely nothing,” he said. “I feel like nothing has changed, it’s still the same. White cops harassing us, me, black males, so nothing’s changed.” Contrasting that opinion, another black man uses his video opportunity to praise the CMPD, calling it one of the best police forces in the country and stating that he believes officers have done a lot of good work to better their relationships in the community. The majority of the videos, however, are more skeptical. In one post, a food vendor in west Charlotte said he has not seen much change.

RYAN PITKIN

“I would love to say more has changed. It sure the hell needs to,” he says. “People don’t have nothing, and it’s getting worse. I hear a lot of ‘We’re trying,’ but I’m tired of try. We need do.”

PATRICE FUNDERBURG, 44, spent more

than 20 years in “The Fortress,” her term for the corporate power brokers of Charlotte and the space they inhabit. She left her successful career as a recruiter to focus on social justice following the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile in July 2016. “I’m like this corporate HR person that was a part of, theoretically, the ‘Other Charlotte,’” Funderburg said. “While I was well-informed about a lot of the issues, I bought into that shit. Now, I’m totally about disrupting the Fortress in very creative and innovative ways.” She launched Educate to Engage shortly after Castile’s death, and had originally planned for it to be a one-time thing, but then Keith Lamont Scott was killed while the first class was still meeting. She saw the need to continue the work she was doing around The New Jim Crow and mass incarceration, so she planned more classes. She’s now in her sixth session of the six-week class. “I would call it community engagement as activism,” Funderburg said. “People learn differently, and how they learn affects how they show up. I’m a learner, I’m an intellectual person, and so delivering information in a unique and descriptive way that causes people to behave differently is essentially organizational development. It’s sort of a rebranding of what I’ve done in corporate space.” Funderburg is always looking for new ways to engage people in the struggle for social justice. At a recent meeting, she lined up each of the classmates by how heavily policed they believe their neighborhoods are and asked

key component to activism. She has recently been hosting story circles with CLAP that are similar to the exercise she ran at the recent Educate to Engage event. The last two topics discussed at the story circles were economic security and safety, respectively. The Real Majority is an extension of that, and deloney, 43, hopes that sharing the stories of everyday Charlotteans can help other residents understand the “two Charlottes” that have been discussed at length in the year following the Keith Scott shooting. “What we have seen is that most people feel like we contribute to this city, we’ve lived here forever, and the city doesn’t care about us,” deloney said. “We know the city doesn’t care about us in all these different ways: they raise our taxes and give us no more benefits, we can’t afford to die in the homes we were born in, we’re one paycheck away from absolute financial ruin, with our family on the street.” She had hoped to gather 100 videos before the anniversary of the Scott shooting, but has been surprised at the reluctance of many people to speak on the record. “Whether we’re talking to service workers in a restaurant, to undocumented workers who might be working in lawn care, or social service agency people outside of their organization, they all have opinions, but very few people want to be public about them. So we’re building it out more slowly,” deloney said. A key focus for deloney is on access — who is allowed at the table to make decisions. Many people, she says, point to lack of engagement at city council meetings, for example, as proof people do not want to get engaged. “When you’re in these meetings and people are like, ‘Well, they didn’t reply to this survey or they didn’t come; I invited them but, but, but, but,’” she says, “that isn’t a reflection of the outreach you’re doing and the desire of other people to come, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the process that you’re perpetuating.” As a west Charlotte resident who lives in the Seversville neighborhood, deloney has seen her share of gentrification take place nearby, but she’s also been frustrated to witness what she calls the privatization of public space, as breweries and other such venues become the new community space. “We do most of our activities in church basements,” deloney said. “In a city of 1 million people, the fact that you can get access to a co-

CLAP founder amalia deloney looks on during an exercise at a recent Educate to Engage event [from left]. Linda Hill and Jasmine Hines hang out after class [center]. Patrice Funderburg leads discussion on ‘The New Jim Crow’ [right]. working space, coffee shop, dog park or brewery before you can get access to free community centers is mind boggling to me. And that is now being used synonymously with community centers, as if somehow hosting panels at a coworking spot is community. No, it’s not. It’s privatized public space. But we can’t get a park or a community center? It’s crazy.”

WHEN LOOKING for spaces to hold events, the women turn to Linda Hill. An event planner, she founded Top of the Hill Solutions, but she’s a jack of all trades in the activist community.

“Linda is a little bit of everything,” Funderburg said at one point during the group interview, laughing. Hill admitted that she does have a wide range of skills related to community building, but said she doesn’t advertise it because some people see it as a weakness when a person doesn’t have one specific area of expertise. “I just show up and do the work,” Hill said. At 58, Hill sees the work The Real Majority does as simply an extension of civil rights activists and social justice organizers that came before. She hopes the videos will help

vent a historical trauma that’s been suffered for decades by people who now make up the majority in Charlotte. “You can go back to the beginning and it’s the same story all along,” Hill said. “What we’re doing, it’s nothing new. Honestly, this has been done. But we’re committed to the work our ancestors put in to continue to fight. Fighting gives us hope.” For Hill, the most fulfilling part of her experience with The Real Majority has been seeing participants’ reactions to being asked to share their opinions. She said most people

PHOTOS BY RYAN PITKIN

she approaches are confused at first, because most media members or city leaders don’t ever ask them what they think. “The more that I heard stories as we were collecting them, it validated the real experience versus the marketing package that’s so pristinely put together by The Fortress,” Hill said. “And I think people really start to feel a sense of value that 1) someone asked them, and 2) there are many other voices that share their experience, and that The Fortress are not the only people asking.” SEE

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NEWS

COVERSTORY OTHER FROM P. 9 t

Hill has made sure to be inclusive along the generational spectrum, something all four women involved with The Real Majority are intentional about. Hill worries that so much focus is placed on young millennials moving into the city that the older generations, many of whom have decades of lived experience in the city, are too often brushed aside. In the end, Hill hopes The Real Majority can change the narrative and empower everyday Charlotteans. “The reason I’m doing this is because I would like to see people in this community have opportunities based on their skills, interest, ability and commitment versus their pedigree,” she said.

WITH ALL OF THE frustrations these four women confront on a daily basis, it helps to have a self care guru on the team, and that’s where Jasmine Hines comes in. On top of owning The Inspower Agency, an organization development firm, she also teaches yoga, and she successfully petitioned

She views The Real Majority as a team of warriors made up of four women of color who were predestined to come together and share people’s stories. “What you’re seeing is an intersectionality that we innately knew was right and organically timed,” Hines said. “Call it the universe, God, Allah, whoever you need to call on, but this union happening, it was just divinely inspired in that way.” She views the videos and recent story circles as types of self care, allowing people to confront the trauma they live with, whether it’s something they’re aware of or not. When Funderburg began to describe how she wanted the people of Charlotte to use their voices as weapons in the healing process, Hines continued for her: “We are creating an invitation to use that muscle, to use the power of their voice as a tool and to exercise the muscle of getting out the trauma that has been stored in our bones; it’s epigenetic in that way,” Hines said. “And so, to be able to have that release

“In a city of 1 million people, the fact that you can get access to a co-working space, coffee shop, dog park or brewery before you can get access to free community centers is mind boggling to me.” -AMALIA DELONEY, THE REAL MAJORITY

the city of Charlotte last year to proclaim December 4 as Self Care Day. Hines has lived in Charlotte for about 15 years, and in that time has seen the yoga scene transform in a way that’s representative of what deloney has seen in the West End and what’s been happening among so many other groups and neighborhoods throughout Charlotte. “My experience in Charlotte has been a joyous and a painful one, in that I’ve seen the evolution of the yoga community move more into a segregated microcosm of what we’re experiencing in our communities as a whole,” Hines said. “I had consciously decided to pull away from the studio-typical experience of yoga and start building community with people who are feeling marginalized because of that shift.” Hines created yoga and self-healing spaces for those marginalized populations, and has started teaching some of the women in The Real Majority, as well, although Hill guiltily admits that her attendance to Hines’ classes is sporadic. Hines said she looks at self care through seven different lenses: spiritual, emotional, economic, artistic, educational, physical and social. 10 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

of pressure and oppression and trauma is a freeing experience.” Each of the women involved with The Real Majority looks at community work as a calling, something Hines describes as a part of her legacy. When she spoke about the end goal of her work, which may only come long after she’s no longer here, her voice trailed off in reverie. Through the frustration and skepticism she’s familiar with in the communities where she works, Hines manages to keep an optimistic attitude regarding work that remains to be done. “I just want to spark humanity back into our daily lives,” she said. “As humans, we want a safe place to live, food on the table, so if I think about what does utopia look like, could that be actualized, and in what ways? “If that’s my legacy to contribute to a utopic type of place, a place that I would want my daughter or her daughter or future generations to live in, like, why can’t I have that?,” Hines asked. “Why don’t I deserve that?” And getting there starts with telling a story. RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

LOST LOVE A 25-year-old Raleigh woman

made a trip to the Queen City last week after learning the hard way that she was not only getting a divorce — she was already divorced. The woman told police that she was at work one day when the suspect, who represented the man she thought was still her husband, came by to “collect” her vehicle on behalf of the husband. The woman asked him what right he had to take the car, and the man told her that she was officially divorced three months earlier, and that, unbeknownst to her, he had forged her signature on official divorce papers in the Mecklenburg County Courthouse at that time.

BALLSY MOVE Police responded to a

shoplifting call at Kate Spade in SouthPark last week after a conspicuous suspect began shoving purses in his pants in the middle of the store. According to the report, the man first shoved a black purse worth $328 down the front of his pants, and may have gotten away with it, but he got greedy. He then took a green version of the purse, and this time left the store with it in his hands. When security followed him out, they found him in a hallway shoving the green one down his pants, and while searching him eventually found the black one, too.

NEWS

SELFIE On September 13, 2017, Apple became self-aware. A 51-year-old man living in the Montibello neighborhood in south Charlotte called police after his phone got a little creepy. The man told police that the phone inexplicably began taking pictures of his daughter all on its own one day at around 6:30 p.m. The man is unaware whether the phone was hacked by some third party or if its AI just has a crush on his daughter. NOBODY HOME Three men entered a

gas station in southeast Charlotte with the intentions of robbing it late at night last week, but it’s hard to rob a place when nobody is around. The employee working at the Circle K on Monroe Road told police he saw the men coming at around 2:30 a.m. and knew they were up to no good, so he hid inside the store. The men eventually left the business without taking anything, and the employee called police. A responding K9 unit found the suspects driving in a car, and a short chase occurred. Two of the three suspects were rounded up after fleeing the vehicle, while a third remains at large.

LET’S GO CAMPING Police responded to

a home in north Charlotte last week after a burglar broke in and made some odd decisions once they were inside. According to the report, the suspect entered through an open garage and then kicked the door in that led to

the house. The man then stole a light fixture from the wall and took the fake logs from the fireplace — logs that are created for gas fire places and literally will not burn.

FUN IN THE SUN Every once in a while, we come across a police report that leaves more questions than answers, and this is one of those times. A report filed at a home in Uptown near the Johnson & Wales University campus makes it sound as if something odd happened during last month’s solar eclipse that is now affecting the house’s alarm system, but how that came about we have no idea. The report states that on August 21, “at an unknown time during the solar eclipse,” someone installed a solar-powered light on the chimney of a nearby complex, and that the fixture now shines directly into the window of the residence where the “victim” in this incident — an elderly woman — lives, and it has continuously disrupted her alarm system ever since its installation. BAD FAITH The suspect in a theft at a church

in south Charlotte may have gotten away with their crime for the time being, but they’ll be going straight to hell come Judgment Day. According to the report, the suspect forcibly removed a donation box from the wall at Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mark on Shasta Lane. Church staff was unsure of how much money was in the box, but they estimate the thief

made off with about $4,000. In an unrelated but equally cold-hearted incident, a staff member at Goodwill called police after catching two people rummaging through donated items outside and taking what they pleased. The suspects were stopped after trying to leave with a picture frame and a plastic bin full of miscellaneous items.

ONE THAT GOT AWAY A 40-year-old

man filed a police report last week after someone vandalized his car and his northwest Charlotte home. Although he didn’t catch anyone in the act, he told police he knows who did it. The man came out to his parked car one morning last week to find two flat tires, then also found that someone had sliced through four window screens in front of his home. The heartbreaker told police that, although he did not see any suspects, he just knows it was a former girlfriend. Let me guess, the crazy one?

COOL DOWN PERIOD A 56-year-old man called police last week after an argument over temperature got so serious that he feared for his safety. The man told police that he got into an argument over the thermostat with a man who was staying at the same boarding house as him in southwest Charlotte. The other man threatened him, and according to the victim, “the threat was delivered in such a manner that he believed it would be carried out.”

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

RISE OF THE MACHINES When Louise Kennedy, an equine veterinarian from Ireland who has worked in Australia for the past two years on a skilled worker visa, decided to stay in the country, she had to take the Pearson Test of English as part of her requirements for permanent residency. Imagine her surprise when, as a native English speaker with two university degrees, she flunked the oral component of the computer-based test. “There’s obviously a flaw in their computer software when a person with perfect oral fluency cannot get enough points,” Kennedy said. For its part, Pearson has denied that there is any problem with its test or scoring “engine.” Kennedy will pursue a spouse visa so she can remain with her Australian husband. NEW WORLD ORDER In Saint-Bernardde-Lacolle, Quebec, near Plattsburgh, New York, the Canadian military is building a refugee camp to house asylum-seekers coming from the United States, where recent migrants fear the current administration’s immigration crackdown. Montreal has already turned its Olympic Stadium into a shelter for refugees. The new camp would house 500 people in heated tents while they wait for refugee applications to be processed. More than 3,300 people crossed into Quebec from the U.S. between January and June 2017.

BRIGHT IDEA United States Border Patrol agent Robert Rocheleau and Alburgh, Vermont, resident Mark Johnson, 53, exchanged tense words on Aug. 3 when Johnson climbed down from his tractor and demanded to know why Rocheleau wasn’t doing more to apprehend illegal immigrants. Johnson said people working in the U.S. illegally were damaging his livelihood. (Alburgh is just south of the border with Canada.) After the exchange, Johnson got back in his tractor and, as Rocheleau reported, “While passing by my vehicle Mr. Johnson ... engaged the PTO shaft to his trailer and covered my vehicle in cow manure.” Mr. Johnson pleaded not guilty in Vermont Superior Court in North Hero, saying he didn’t know the car was nearby when he turned on his manure spreader. OW! OW! OW! On June 25, Doug Bergeson

of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was framing the fireplace of a home he was building when his nail gun slipped from his grasp and shot a 3 1/2-inch nail into his heart. Bergeson said it stung, but when he saw the nail “moving with my heart,” he realized he wasn’t going to get any more work done. So he washed up and drove himself to the hospital 12 miles away, where he alerted a security guard that he had a nail in his heart and said, “It’d be great if you can find somebody to help me out here.” Bergeson underwent surgery to remove the

nail, which his doctors said barely missed a main artery in his heart.

BOLD MOVE Edward Kendrick McCarty, 38, of North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, came away with more than good tips after deejaying a wedding reception. The morning after the wedding, bride Ashley Karasek of Turkeytown noticed that her box of wedding cards was mostly empty. McCarty had been in charge of the box during the reception, and Karasek noticed people handing him cards to put in it throughout the evening. But when she and her new husband looked in the box, only 12 cards remained. McCarty confessed to taking the cards “because of financial struggles” and said he got about $600. IRONIES In Florida, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority CEO Brad Miller and board chair Darden Rice helped Barbara Rygiel celebrate her 103rd birthday on Aug. 15 by presenting her with a lifetime bus pass. Rygiel rides the bus to church about four times a week and said the pass will help with the costs. “Look at how much I can save,” she said. WEIRD SCIENCE The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board is investigating in Navi Mumbai, India, after stray dogs started turning blue. An animal protection group there contends that dyes being dumped into

the Kasadi River by nearby factories are causing the dogs’ fur to turn a bright shade of blue.

MODEL PARENTS A school resource officer

at Lexington Middle School in Lee County, Florida, caught a glimpse of something alarming on Aug. 15 as he looked out a secondfloor window toward the parent pickup lane. Christina Hester, 39, of Fort Myers was using her iPhone to cut and snort cocaine. After seeing Hester use a straw to inhale the substance, the SRO asked her to come inside the school. He retrieved her purse and found .5 gram of cocaine inside, and she was charged with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

DRIVE-THRU RAGE Michael Delhomme

couldn’t abide a Delray Beach, Florida, McDonald’s having run out of ice cream on Aug. 15. So while he and his friend, Jerry Henry, 19, waited in the drive-thru line, Delhomme asked Henry to get the “stick” out of the trunk. A McDonald’s employee watched on surveillance video as Henry went to the trunk and removed a replica AR-15 airsoft rifle, then got back in the car. The workers couldn’t tell that the weapon was not authentic and called 911, and Henry was charged with improper exhibition of a firearm. CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 11

FOOD

FEATURE

KEEPING THINGS FRESH Abugida family continues to expand with new Ethiopian grocery RYAN PITKIN

O SEE SHITO Negussie emerge from the back of Abugida Ethiopian Café in a flowing, pink and white traditional Ethiopian dress — called a habesha kemis — before sitting down in front of 18 empty coffee cups, a basket of popcorn, a jebena in which to brew and pour the coffee and a bowl of burning incense is to realize you’re not at Starbucks anymore. To taste the results is only to confirm that fact. At least once a day, Negussie or someone at the café goes through the traditional process of brewing Ethiopian coffee, which starts with something you’re not likely to find at any corporate chain or local coffee shop in town: green, pre-roasted coffee beans. Yodite Tesfaye, Negussie’s daughter, was taken aback when she moved to the United States and realized that nobody used preroasted coffee. “I noticed that,” Tesfaye says. “I went to a coffee shop and this lady had never seen coffee without being roasted. I was so shocked.” Tesfaye, who runs Abugida with her mother and younger brother, Zemas, has lived here for nearly two decades, and now when she returns to Ethiopia to visit, she notices the roasted coffee trend popping up there, as well. “Back home, now when I go back, I see coffee roasted and being sold,” she says. “But before, you never saw coffee that was preroasted. You go to corner stores and they just sell the fresh coffee, never roasted coffee. Now I went back and I see packs of roasted coffee and I’m like, ‘Things change.’” Soon, however, customers will be able to find pre-roasted coffee for their homes, as well as an array of different Ethiopian goods, when Yodite’s older sister, Roza Tesfaye, opens Balageru Ethiopian grocery store with her husband right next door to Abugida. The soft-spoken Roza hopes to continue helping to serve Charlotte’s growing Ethiopian population while teaching the culture to those unfamiliar with it, a process her mother and siblings started with the opening of Abugida in February. Roza says the idea came as Abugida customers continued asking where they could find ingredients to make some of the traditional Ethiopian meals they were ordering there, and the staff didn’t have an answer for them. “Charlotte didn’t have that much Ethiopian people before,” Roza says. “Now we’ve had a lot of people move to Charlotte. So, those people, they need stuff. They go 12 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

to D.C. or Atlanta to get it. So now we will open and the people are happy, and they’re Abugida customers, too, so that’s why we open there.” The store will be a godsend to her siblings, as well, who use strictly fresh meat seasoned with Ethiopian-imported ingredients at Abugida, but currently have to drive to South Carolina to get most of their spices and other foods. “Either we go get [our meat] from the farms, or there is one supplier that supplies fresh everything, and we get it from them,” Yodite explains. “We don’t do anything that is pre-packed. [Roza and her husband Kassahun Habteslasea] are going to actually go to the farms and do everything fresh. So we’re just waiting for them to open, because right now I have to drive all the way to South Carolina. I won’t have to go all the way down there.”

YODITE AND HER family are no strangers

to traveling long distances in the interest of getting what they want. Negussie came to America in 1995 with one goal: sending for her four children to join her and attend college in the States. Three years later, the children left Ethiopia, where they had lived with their father, to join their mother. Yodite, who has an older brother along with Roza and Zemas, was 15 years old and hated attending Independence High School. “In high school, oh it was hard,” Yodite says. “I told my mom to take me back. I was the one who rebelled. For my little brother, it was easier to adjust because he was kind of young, so he adjusted, but for me, I kind of remember what’s going on back home, so when I come to a big high school not knowing the language, and the crowd is different, it was really a tough time. I did not enjoy my high school at all.” Once she graduated, she returned to Ethiopia. She knew, however, that her mother did not want to live in the United States, either, but that she moved here and made sacrifices in the hopes that her children would attend college. The guilt was enough to convince Yodite to return to Charlotte, where she enrolled at Central Piedmont Community College and later graduated from WinstonSalem State University. She now considers the United States, and Charlotte in particular, her home and has no plans to leave. Yodite had always wanted to open an Ethiopian coffee shop, and began to make plans to do so after college, but she was overlooking her ace in the hole. “My mom, people were always telling her

Shito Negussie and her family celebrated the Ethiopian New Year at Abugida on Sept. 10. to open a restaurant. Because at church, at events, she always cooked, and everybody loved her cooking, but she was always by herself raising four kids, so she couldn’t do it,” Yodite says. Negussie had opened Al’s Mini Mart with Roza in west Charlotte, but the family was ready to expand, so Yodite brought her mother on to help out. “My passion was just to have a coffee shop, but everybody was like, ‘You’ve got your mom. Why would you want to just have a coffee shop? Why would you do that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, why don’t we use her while she’s here, to teach us what she knows.’”

YODITE TESSAYE

Negussie still plans to return home to Ethiopia eventually, but until then, she is right at home holding coffee ceremonies at Abugida.

IN THE CAFÉ, Negussie roasts the beans

while mixing them in a pan before beginning the three-step brewing ceremony that’s crucial to the social culture of Ethiopia. The first round, called awel, is the strongest. As Negussie brews the second round, kale’i, she adds more water. The third round, baraka (“to be blessed”), is the weakest, and basically serves as a reason to keep people at the table and socializing.

Abugida’s vegetable plate is the café’s best seller. Soon after the coffee is served comes the food, which begins as a large circle of teff bread on a pan. The teff, a spongy bread native to Ethiopia and only recently grown in Australia and parts of the United States, will serve as both the plate and mode of conveyance for the meal. One by one, Yodite places food items on top of the teff: beef tibs, doro wot, hard-boiled eggs marinated in traditional sauces, and an array of colorful vegetables seasoned to perfection. (The vegetable plate is Abugida’s best seller, thanks in large part to the growing popularity of gluten-free and vegan diets.) Folks around the table use their rolls of teff or pieces picked from the round plate the food sits on to transport the food to their

Negussie pours coffee during one of her daily ceremonies.

ABUGIDA ETHIOPIAN CAFE Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Closed Monday. 3007 Central Ave. 980-2372760. myabogidacafe.com.

MARK KEMP

mouths and soak up the scrumptious sauces left behind. Surprisingly for Yodite, the restaurant has attracted a large number of non-Ethiopian customers during its first year, and all of them seem to enjoy the food, though some have trouble getting past the fact that they have to eat with their hands. “I had a customer who freaked out. She just couldn’t,” Yodite recalls. “I had to give her a spoon that we mixed coffee with. At that time, I didn’t have no fork, I didn’t have anything. She really freaked out. So now we have a couple forks that I have for people “People, at first they get hesitant and say, ‘Give me a fork.’ I say, ‘OK, I’ll give it to you, but if I were you, I’d eat with my hands.’ Then

RYAN PITKIN

they’ll try one or two times and kind of get used to it.” The first woman to freak out, by the way, kept coming back because she loved the food so much. She’s now a regular customer, and no longer requests silverware. It just proves something that Yotibe’s family has known for decades: to get what you want, sometimes you have to get your hands dirty. RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 13

FRIDAY

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

My Friend Dahmer FRIDAY PHOTO COURTESY OF FILMRISE

FRIDAY

DUBAMINE

MY FRIEND DAHMER

MONK PARKER

What: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done for a free prize? Whatever it was, we’re sure that searching through a massive pile of pumpkin brains (all that gooey stuff you have to scoop out before carving) for a key to a new car will be the weirdest. If you don’t like pumpkin, stay away from this party, which features pumpkin beers, cocktails, bombs and milkshakes. And if that’s not enough, sign up for the pumpkin pie-eating contest, too. They say it tastes the same coming up as going down.

What: If you want to experience some seriously deep dub — we’re talking Lee “Scratch” Perry and Bill Laswell-level experimental dub — then you’ll want to be at the Milestone for Bay Area producer Dubamine, who mixes roots reggae, hip-hop, and booming, soul-stirring bass in mixes that will soothe your soul and tickle your synapses. He’s performing with a trio of N.C.-based experimental soundscape artists, Zeplinn (Asheville area), Snakko (Raleigh) and Makak (Wilmington).

What: It’s said that we pass by seven serial killers in our lifetime. Hell, one of our arts writers got into a van with John Wayne Gacy as a kid. Luckily, he made it, and we suggest you try to make it long enough to see this opening night screening for the Charlotte Film Festival. My Friend Dahmer tells the haunting story of a shy, quiet, alcoholic high schooler who grew up to be America’s most infamous cannibal. Now we wonder who were the serial killers we’ve passed.

What: With a name that conjures two of the greatest jazz men in history, and a warm, brassy, multitextured, country-tinged sound that makes Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth seem like frothy pop by comparison, Monk Parker is a poet and singer not to be missed. Take a break from Twin Peaks and go see the Texan spin mournful tales of existential angst in songs with titles like “Drowned Men” and lines like, “There’s fires in the dancehalls / and knives made of neon that tower high.”

When: 7 p.m. Where: Strike City, 210 E. Trade St. (ground floor of the EpiCentre) More: Free. strikecitycharlotte.com

When: 8 p.m. Where: The Milestone, 3400 Tuckaseegee Road More: $13. themilestone.club

HARVEST HOWLER!

14 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

When: 8 p.m. Where: Ayrsley Grand Cinemas 14, 9110 Kings Parade Blvd. More: $8-10. charlottefilmfestival. org

When: 10 p.m. Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: $7. snugrock.com

SATURDAY

SUP STREAM CATAWBA RIVER RACE What: Racing on paddleboards isn’t as hard as it seems — unless, of course, you’re doing some weird namaste yoga moves on the board, and good luck with that. As for us beginners, this four-mile race is a good way to get your toes wet while getting in a gnarly core and shoulder exercise. If you competed in the Tuck Fest SUP Race earlier this year, it’s the perfect time to measure what progress you’ve made over the summer. When: 8 a.m. Where: U.S. National Whitewater Center, 5000 Whitewater Center Pkwy. More: $35. usnwc.org

Kazim Ali TUESDAY

Harvest Howler! FRIDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

Soul Food Sessions TUESDAY PHOTO BY TONYA ROSEN-JONES

SATURDAY

DANIEL LEVIN

THE FRITZ

What: This is not your normal “It’s Friday night, let’s go see a show in Plaza Midwood” set, but that’s a good thing. Renowned cellist/ composer Daniel Levin is touring for the release of his second solo LP, Living, and better yet, he’ll be joined by Charlotte-based dancer Audrey Baran. The two will perform separate solo sets before coming together to hash out a little bit of improvised action together on stage. Don’t miss the dude the Penguin Guide to Jazz called “very much the man to watch.”

What: Over a bed of spidery guitars, bright keyboards and crab-walking bass, Asheville’s The Fritz craft anthemic funk-rock that cocks an ear to soulful gospel and intricate jazz fusion. Trainspotters will find bits of Prince and Return to Forever in their sound, while everyone else shakes their asses and dances. This gig is the release party for the band’s album Natural Mind, one of those rare records that capture the exhilarating hairpinturn excitement of a band’s live set.

When: 6 p.m. Where: Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. More: $5. petrasbar.com

PHOTO BY PETER TAYLOR

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISTOCK

When: 8 p.m. Where: Rabbit Hole, 1801 Commonwealth Ave. More: $10. facebook.com/ rabbitholemidwood

TUESDAY

SOUL FOOD SESSIONS: A CARIBBEAN VOYAGE

THE SECRET ROOM: A STRING QUARTET

THE WAR ON DRUGS

What: The folks at Soul Food Sessions, an all-black cohort of chefs that holds events to help local nonprofits, have interesting timing. Their inaugural session was held last October, while the black commnity was reeling from the Charlotte Uprising. Now, SFS is planning a Caribbean-focused dinner on the heels of Hurricane Irma, which devestated that region. The funds raised will benefit Project 658, which helps refugees, immigrants and the disadvantaged.

What: Kazim Ali has written four books of poetry, two books of essays and two novels. One of his texts, Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities, is described as transgenre — part detective story, part literary memoir, part imagined past. His new novel, The Secret Room, not only crosses genres but mediums, as it takes the form of a string quartet. During this reading, four speakers read different texts simultaneously, making for what amounts to a literary anxiety attack.

What: The War on Drugs is like an archeological dig. On top of a big-guitar ’80s-rock template — think Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Waterboys minus those annoying gated drums — TWoD mastermind Adam Granduciel has added layers of sparkling synths, chugging six-string and rumbling bass over the years. It can be hard to pin down what Granduciel is singing about, but that very elusive quality makes the songs grandiose and haunting. It is a sweeping sound and fury signifying — something.

When: 6-9 p.m. Where: Project 658, 3646 Central Ave. More: $80. bit.ly/2xjsrkd

When: 7 p.m. Where: Barber Theatre, 310 N. Main St., Davidson More: Free. davidson.edu/the-arts

When: 8 p.m. Where: The Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St. More: $33 and up. fillmorenc.com

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 15

FEATURE

MUSIC

SOLO CRUISE Sugar Glyder front man Daniel Howie is back, making sweet, tasty music as Mouth Sounds BY MARK KEMP

OUR YEARS AGO, Daniel

Howie was on the cusp of national success as front man of the Charlotte alt-rock band Sugar Glyder when he walked away from the music biz and began working as an IT recruiter. After recording and releasing a handful of indie records to growing acclaim throughout the 2000s, Sugar Glyder had signed with the Warner Bros. Records subsidiary ORG Music in 2012, and the following year released its major-label debut, The Eyes: They See. But all was not well in paradise. “We had personal issues within the band,” Howie remembers. “It wasn’t drugs or violence or anything like that — it was just issues with responsibility, the stresses and strains of touring, the new stresses of being signed and playing with somebody else’s money. The members of the band just weren’t getting along.” Shortly after the album came out, Sugar Glyder released an acclaimed video for one of its tracks, “Lost in the Woods,” and began touring. But soon thereafter, bassist Emily Aoyagi had had enough of the drama and quit. Sugar Glyder recruited Robby Hartis, the bassist of Charlotte’s The Lights, Florescent, whom Howie calls “a super-awesome dude. He really jump-started the band.” But the problems persisted. “We tried to address them and fix things but they just didn’t get fixed,” Howie says. “It got to the point where other members were going to leave, and I didn’t want it to come to blows, or to an explosion onstage.” He looks away, pensive. “I didn’t want it to become a Liam and Noel Gallagher thing,” he goes on, referring to the famously fighting brothers of Oasis. “We all cared about each other and the band. That’s why you have that kind of friction. But I wanted the memories and the importance of what Sugar Glyder was to this city to remain positive.” Howie pulled the plug on the group and moved on to his career as a recruiter, eventually joining the technology-based marketing and sales company Red Ventures, where he still works today. But while he left the stage and the acclaim of being the front man of an upand-coming rock outfit, he never completely left music. In 2014, Howie started collaborating with Charlotte drummer and producer Mark Eckert on a solo project he called Mouth Sounds. The two began tinkering with loops and other sounds, Eckert bringing a fresh new electronic sensibility to Howie’s sugary pop. 16 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY SEPEHR MOKHTARZADEH

Daniel Howie gets serious with Mouth Sounds.

“IT GOT TO THE POINT [IN SUGAR GLYDER] WHERE OTHER MEMBERS WERE GOING TO LEAVE, AND I DIDN’T WANT IT TO COME TO BLOWS . . . I DIDN’T WANT IT TO BECOME A LIAM AND NOEL GALLAGHER THING.” -DANIEL HOWIE OF MOUTH SOUNDS

The result is Mouth Sounds’ debut sevensong EP Sing or Swim, released digitally last year and coming out in physical form this week. Mouth Sounds will perform an albumrelease show at the Visulite September 21, and Howie says he couldn’t be happier with the low-key, more organic way that his latest project has come to fruition. “When we started out, I had no idea what I wanted to create,” Howie, 33, says. He’s sitting at Amelie’s Bakery — not the hip one in NoDa, but the suburban one at Carmel Commons in South Charlotte — looking, he notes with a laugh, “pretty fly” in a grey, button-down collar shirt, black jeans and combat boots. “Working with Mark, I was able to just be myself,” he says. “I know what I like and that’s what I always write. So we sat down and created a foundation of seven songs, started working on a story, and started building on the idea of, ‘What is Mouth Sounds? Who is it for?’” The name comes from the way Howie composes. He’ll come up with a melody and begin humming it and then singing it, initially

forming gibberish lyrics. “It’s very phonetic, the way I write,” he says. “It always starts out with a song in my head that I wish was a real song. It’s usually a hum or a sound, and then just random consonants and vowels. Then I’ll put chords to it and I’ll play off the rhythms of whatever I’m hearing and feeling. “The meaning and lyrics take a back seat,” he says. “They don’t come until later.” Howie addresses that process on the EP’s first single “In the Night,” over a bright buzz of keyboards and a heavy electronic beat: “Don’t get carried away with the words on the page,” he sings, “they’re just words anyway.” The song is a notable departure from the slick harmony guitars of Sugar Glyder tunes like “Lost in the Woods,” and certainly a far cry from the band’s earlier, heavier songs, such as the title track of its 2009 LP Poor Baby Zebra. “I wanted to take a different approach to this album,” Howie says. “Coming off the heels of being in an environment of working with others in all that strife and conflict, I wanted to be open to different collaborators. I wanted to invite new people in and just let the organic nature of the

collaborations come out under the name Mouth Sounds.” In addition to Eckert, Howie enlisted New York bassist Sam Enright and sax player Ryan Saranich, who plays in the Pink Floyd tribute band Brit Floyd and provides subtle touches to “In the Night” and the quirky “Slow DiMaggio.” Eckert, a full decade younger than Howie, was thrilled to be part of the project. “I’d been a big fan of Sugar Glyder back in high school,” Eckert says. “I loved how they incorporated synths in their sound. Not many bands in Charlotte were doing it back then, and I really felt like they were pushing boundaries for an indie band.” When he heard an early solo mix of “Higher Ceilings,” a track on Sing or Swim, Eckert says, “I immediately shot a message via Facebook and asked if he wanted to hang out. After meeting up and talking, we were pretty dead set on making a record together.” Eckert helped bring out the crisp, percussive elements in tracks like “Higher Ceiling” and “Marigold,” the album’s wistful closer. “I had been toying with backing tracks, synth programming and triggers since I was in early

MOUTH SOUNDS 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21. $6. Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave. 704-358-9200. visulite.com

high school, and I’ve been playing with artists since then that only do that,” Eckert says. “So immediately I said to Daniel, ‘Let’s just go for it. Let’s put in all the sounds we can, and the logistics of the show can be figured out later. It ended up working out great.” The collaboration has made Howie feel alive again. “I had about 80 or 90 songs on my computer,” he says. “A lot of it had spun off into Sugar Glyder stuff — songs we ended up recording as a band — but some of it stayed dormant.” He pauses. “I mean, I’d been doing this since I was 16 years old. I have so many ideas floating around.”

DANIEL HOWIE wasn’t always so open with his music. His dad John and uncle Eddy Howie were members of the ’70s- and ’80s-period AOR pop-metal band Sugarcreek (think Kansas, Foreigner, Loverboy), a Charlotte act that eventually landed on the pre-American Idol TV show Star Search, where they performed two songs — “Rock the Night Away” and “Here We Go Again” — to great fanfare. At first, Daniel was too shy to play music around his father, who was also a bodybuilder and owner of the Enterprise Fitness gym in Monroe. Daniel dabbled a little on a Casio SK-1 synth and eventually got himself a cheap Peavey guitar. “But I didn’t feel comfortable doing it in front of people,” he says, “because my dad had been in this big rock band. Those were big shoes to fill.” By high school, Howie had discovered his own musical preferences — acts like Weezer, Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World. He and childhood friend Chris Rigo started playing in cover bands at parties, but when Howie went off to North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the two separated for a couple of years. At college, Howie worked as a DJ for the campus radio station, where he fell in love with Britpop. When he came back to Charlotte to study at UNCC, he and Rigo formed Sugar Glyder. Their first show was at the now-demolished Fat City in NoDa. From 2003 to 2013, Sugar Glyder honed its sound at venues like Fat City and Tremont Music Hall. And that sound was nothing like the metal and punk bands they shared bills with. It was a mix of indie experimentation with pop-song structures and dramatic dynamics reminiscent of Muse or Snow Patrol — “bands that had theses grandiose choruses that would literally be an explosion of sound, but that also had this sweet, subtle kind of melancholy,” Howie says. “I gravitated to sad melodies, but with music that’s very anthemic — that shifts from that sad, morose music into these big, explosive choruses. A lot of ups and downs and louds and quiets.” Around that time, Howie developed his signature, high-pitched vocal style purely by accident. He wanted Sugar Glyder to stand out amid the roar of lumbering hard rock and punk bands.

“We didn’t have the best equipment, and I specifically had to try hard to be heard over music,” he remembers. “So I wrote everything and sang everything in a higher register. I had to just push everything, which in retrospect was for the best. It gave us a sound that was exciting and energetic.” Charlotte music fans took note, and after the band self-released four solid albums — The Unsaid and the Obvious, in 2006; We Cracked the Sky, in 2008; Poor Baby Zebra, in 2009; and Lovers at Light Speed, in 2011 — major labels began taking note, too. In 2011, Sugar Glyder played an unofficial show at the South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, for reps from ORG Music, a vinyl reissue label which had released a few original projects including new works from Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehose) and Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers). The label signed Sugar Glyder and released The Eyes: They See, which was a leap forward for the band in terms of sound and production. The record got good reviews, and the video for “Lost in the Woods” won director Josh Stauffer a “Best Music Video” award at the 2013 Los Angeles Cinema Festival. ORG was ready to push Sugar Glyder hard, but then everything fell apart. “It was certainly disappointing to have Sugar Glyder break up so soon after the album’s release,” says ORG’s Andrew Rossiter. “With a developing act like Sugar Glyder, that makes it nearly impossible to recoup the money or energy we spent on the album, which is always disheartening.” (ORG has since returned to releasing reissues only.) Howie felt bad about letting ORG down, but he moved on with his life, getting a straight job to help support his wife and family. “Super Glyder was a full-time effort, so coming out of that was a big bounce,” Howie says. “The questions for me at that time were: How do you support a family? How do you pull in a real income? I’d always had a lot of support growing up and throughout Sugar Glyder’s years of touring and traveling. At some point I realized I wanted to give back. So when the band broke up, it gave me the opportunity to start a career.” SEE

CRUISE P. 18 u CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 17

Sweet, gooey innocence in 2005: Sugar Glyder’s Emily Aoyagi, Chris Rigo, Cory Lambert (standing), and Howie (stooping) were almost famous.

MUSIC

FEATURE

MUSICIANS DON’T just stop making

music, though, and Howie couldn’t stay away from it for more than a year. Fortunately for him, Red Ventures doesn’t discourage its employees from having side hustles, so Howie got busy again tinkering with songs. But he plans to take things much more slowly with Mouth Sounds. He’s in no hurry and is no longer chasing fame or fortune. “The life cycle of this project is not about working at a breakneck speed of putting an album out right now and then touring right now, and then putting another album out. I’m pushing that model aside,” Howie says. “And if you’re not in this business to make money — and I’m not — then it’s not necessary to work like that. I want to create the cicada life cycle of a band [laughs] — underground from seven to 17 years and then let it hatch when it’s time, not try to force it out of the ground before it’s ready.” 18 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO COURTESY OF DANIEL HOWIE

CRUISE FROM P.17 t Howie has an outline for how he’d like for Mouth Sounds to develop: He plans to do seven songs on seven different albums, beginning with Sing or Swim. “Seven is just the perfect number,” he says. “There are seven notes in a scale, seven colors in a rainbow, seven days in a week. Seven years is when you get the itch.” He laughs at his own enthusiasm. “It’s just a good solid number, and it gives me form with which to wrap my ideas around.” As far as creating a massive fan base and going out on the road, Howie says he’s not overthinking that. “There are people who will like it and people who won’t,” he says. “And that’s completely OK with me. Even if only two people like it, I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.” He smiles and shrugs: “This is what I do. I make music. I always will.” MKEMP@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 19

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD

SEPTEMBER 21 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH John Alexander Jazz Trio (Blue Restaurant & Bar)

COUNTRY/FOLK Beavergrass Bluegrass Jam f. Jim Garrett (Thirsty Beaver) Circus No. 9 (The Evening Muse)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Le Bang : Grown Folks Radio (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Bob Fleming & The Cambria Iron Co., Matty Carlock, Chris Thomas, David Z. Cox (Milestone) Crystal Fountains (Mac’s Speed Shop Steele Creek) High Cube, Dear Blanca, Quinn Cicala, JPH (Petra’s) The Holdouts (Mac’s Speed Shop Matthews) Hunter’s Travesty (Mac’s Speed Shop Lake Norman) Jamie McLean Band (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Karaoke with DJ ShayNanigans (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Matt Minchew Duo (RiRa Irish Pub) Mouth Sounds, Human Resources, Koosh (Visulite Theatre) Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular (Neighborhood Theatre)

SEPTEMBER 22 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony: Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Belk Theater) The Stephane Wrembel Band (The Evening Muse)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Dubamine, Makak, Zeplinn, Snakko (Milestone)

COUNTRY/FOLK The Kingston Trio (McGlohon Theater) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill) Monk Parker, Landless, Knowne Ghost (Snug Harbor)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Method (RiRa Irish Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B The Crew Love Tour: Micki Miller, Venzella Joy, Blanche J, DJ Fannie Mae, Hosted by Quentin Talley. (Morehead Tavern)

POP/ROCK Adam Ant (The Fillmore Charlotte) Amigo (Mac’s Speed Shop Matthews) The Chris Robinson Brotherhood 20 | SEPT. 21 -SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

SEND US (Neighborhood Theatre) Jason Scavone, Johnny Wicker, Carly Taich, Alex Traver (Petra’s) Jay Taylor (Tin Roof) Matthew Susong (NoDa Brewing Company) Michael Vincent Band (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) My 3 Sons (The Evening Muse) Nothing More, As Lions, My Ticket Home, Hell Or Highwater (The Underground) Wicked Powers (RiRa Irish Pub)

SEPTEMBER 23 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony: Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Belk Theater) One + One = X: Audrey Baran & Daniel Levin (Petra’s) Pheobe Hunt & The Gatherers, Dori Freeman (Evening Muse)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Digital Noir featuring Michael Price and DJ Spider (Milestone) DJ Complete (RiRa Irish Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Astrea Corp, RBTS Win, Xero God (Snug Harbor) Lyricist’s Lounge $7. (Upscale Lounge & Restaurant)

COUNTRY/FOLK Muscadine Bloodline, Brandon Ray, Out of the Blue (Coyote Joe’s)

POP/ROCK Bearden Music Series (Romare Bearden Park) ABACAB - The Music Of Genesis (Sylvia Theatre, York) Abbey Road LIVE! (Visulite Theatre) Carolina Gator Gumbo (Comet Grill) Demi the Daredevil, Purple Hearts, and The Kneads (The Station) The Fritz, Open Soul Project (The Rabbit Hole) Kris Hitchcock (Tin Roof) Mike Gordon (Neighborhood Theatre) Natty Boh Duo (Mac’s Speed Shop Steele Creek) One Love NOLA Tour: Dust Bowl Faeries, Twiggy Branches, Patchwork Symphony (The Evening Muse) River Ratz Band (Birdsong Brewing Co.) Shadow Show, Heart of a Ghost (Lunchbox Records) Sleeping With Sirens (The Underground) Smash City (RiRa Irish Pub)

SEPTEMBER 24 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony: Beethoven Symphony No.

9 (Belk Theater) Jazz Brunch (RiRa Irish Pub)

COUNTRY/FOLK Lisa De Novo (Mac’s Speed Shop South End)

POP/ROCK The Cactus Blossoms, Jack Klatt (The Evening Muse) Grungefest with tributes to Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots & Alice In Chains: ey Johnny Park, Jeremy’s Ten, Big Empty, Angry Chair (The Fillmore Charlotte) Jistu, Bird Law, Uncle Buck (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Moodie Black, Mikal kHill, Joules, B-Villainous, Shadow (Milestone) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill) Pluto for Planet (Mac’s Speed Shop Lake Norman)

SEPTEMBER 25 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 special guest Zealyn (The Evening Muse) 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) Session: A Listening Party (Petra’s) The War On Drugs (The Fillmore Charlotte)

SEPTEMBER 26 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Morehead Tavern)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Ivan Neville, Dumpstaphunk (The Fillmore)

COUNTRY/FOLK Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill) The Copper Tones (Keg and Cue) Country Tuesday (Snug Harbor)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B The Suffers (Cabarrus Arts Council, Concord)

POP/ROCK Charley Crockett Band (The Evening Muse) Jon Dwyer, Ben Tricky, Charles Walker (Milestone) Tony MacAlpine, Felix Martin (The Rabbit Hole, Charlotte)

SOUNDBOARD

MUSIC

SEPTEMBER 27 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH The Clarence Palmer Trio (Morehead Tavern)

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

9/20DEER TICK 9/23 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! 9/29 SOUTHERN CULTURE THEON SKIDS 10/8 SERATONES 10/12 Vita and the Woolf 10/14 SUSTO & ESME PATTERSON 10/19 Hamilton Leithauser 10/20THE WEEKS 10/25NOAH GUNDERSEN10/26BIG SOMETHING & DREW COPELAND 10/28 KEN BLOCK 11/5SHADOWBOXERS (of SISTER HAZEL) 11/10 BLUE DOGS 11/11THE BREAKFAST CLUB

COUNTRY/FOLK Open Mic/Open Jam (Comet Grill)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Hipgnostic (Neighborhood Theatre)

POP/ROCK The Holdouts (Mac’s Speed Shop South End) Karaoke with DJ Pucci Mane (Petra’s) Kings of Leon (PNC Music Pavilion) Open Mic & Songwriter Workshop (Petra’s) Pluto For Planet (RiRa Irish Pub) September Residency: Oddboy Collective presents Oddczar, Barrow, Planet Creep (Snug Harbor)

Part-time piano accompanist/organist needed for Urban Charlotte Church. Wednesday rehearsals and Sunday mornings required and occasional special services. Additional income potential at weddings, funerals etc. Must have strong sight-reading skills. Send resumes to First Christian Church 1200 East Blvd Charlotte, NC 28203 or by email to office@fcc-charlotte.org

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

YOUR LISTINGS!

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

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

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704-399-4946

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 21

ARTS

THEATER

FACE MELTING FURY ‘American Idiot’ is a rockin’ labor of love from Actor’s Theatre BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

NGER,

ALIENATION , disillusionment and frustration were all part of the high-octane fuel that powered Green Day’s punk rock opera American Idiot in 2004. The group’s first post-9/11 record struck a chord, winning awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including a Grammy for Best Rock Album. The targets of the group’s wrath — media, suburbia, Bush-era militarism, and ubiquitous TV — remained fresh enough for Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong and stage director Michael Mayer to transform the celebrated album into a Broadway musical in 2010. Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, which starts its second consecutive season in exile from its planned and purchased permanent home on Freedom Drive, has a bit of pentup anger, frustration and disillusionment of its own. Still tangled up in a red-tape mess of zoning, safety, and building regulations — on an existing building, mind you — the local theater group may be wrapping all of that into its production of American Idiot. The Charlotte premiere opens in previews Thursday, September 21, at Hadley Theater on the Queens University campus. Official opening night is the following Wednesday. ATC artistic director Chip Decker not only empathizes with the angst in American Idiot, but he also gets the band. “I have loved Green Day’s music since the [1991] album Kerplunk,” Decker boasts. “American Idiot dropped in 2004, and I could not listen to it enough. I think we were all reeling still from 9/11 — the wars, etc. — and this album gave a release valve to many who were angry, scared, lost, disillusioned and looking for hope in a difficult time.” Leading men Matt Carlson and Jeremy DeCarlos say they feel similarly deeply about the music. You can gauge their respective ages by when they climbed aboard the Green Day bandwagon. Carlson, who plays Johnny, the Jesus of Suburbia hero from the album, says he latched onto American Idiot when he was about 14, and it was the first album he learned to play on guitar from beginning to end. DeCarlos, a mainstay in the finest Actor’s Theatre productions since 2004 — both on the stage or thrashing his guitar — plays Johnny’s alter ego, St. Jimmy, leading the suburban Jesus into citified debaucheries. DeCarlos says he got the Green Day bug during the summer of 1994, when “Basket Case” was a hit off the band’s breakthrough album Dookie. 22 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

American idiots, from left to right: Steven Buchanan (Will), Matt Carlson (Johnny), and Grant Zavitkovsky (Tunny), in the foreground; Jeremy DeCarlos (St. Jimmy) in the background.

The full cast of ‘American Idiot.’ “I felt like Billie Joe wasn’t just singing to me, but as me, in a way,” DeCarlos remembers. “I ran out and bought the album and wore a hole in it. When my mother presented me with my first guitar, I told myself that if I ever learned how to play one song on it, it would be Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).’ It took me roughly a month, but the first song I ever learned on guitar was a Green Day song.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ACTOR’S THEATRE.

SO HOW DOES a punk rock opera with three characters become a musical that can fill a Broadway stage? Armstrong and Mayer added new characters and Green Day added more music, conveniently ripped from 21st Century Breakdown, the follow-up to American Idiot. In the stage version of the piece, instead of one disgruntled Jesus itching to escape suburbia, there are three — Johnny, Will and

Tunny — along with three women. Johnny and Tunny escape, respectively, to the wicked city and the U.S. Army, but Will won’t. He dutifully stays behind when he learns that Heather (the only woman in the show with a name) is pregnant with his child. So, we get three depressing outcomes to wail about. “The book is wafer-thin, single-ply, generic, toilet-paper thin,” Decker admits, “but I feel like that was a very intentional choice. I was able to find my own voice and feelings in the album, and I think that is what the story lines do in this. They present a thought and feeling, but do not try and insist that the viewer or listener accept that view as the truth.” Just because Carlson reveres the music doesn’t mean he worships the suburban Jesus he’s delivering to us as the leading man. Carlson describes Johnny as something of a jerk, and he isn’t sure we’ll like him. “He is the edgy, cocky punk guy you knew in high school who never did anything with his life,” Carlson says. But the music? That draws a different reaction from the young actor and rocker. Like many of Green Day’s faithful, Carlson was a bit leery and disappointed when he first heard that the punk band was taking their act to Broadway. It had to be an artistic sellout, right? When Carlson eventually encountered the final product, though, he was pleasantly surprised. “The American Idiot album is so different versus the stage score,” Carlson says. “I love the simple punk rock of the album, but maybe because I’m into musical theater, I like the stage version even better. On stage, the concept album is made more complete with the play script and music.” SEE

FURY P. 24 u

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 23

ARTS FURY FROM

the notables taking part in My Little Pony: The Movie, an animated adventure in which the equestrian stars attempt to save Ponyville from an evil intruder ... The Mountain Between Us stars Kate Winslet and Idris Elba as two plane-crash survivors forced to travel across hundreds of miles of wilderness in an effort to reach civilization ... Judi Dench, who earned her first career Oscar nomination for portraying Queen Victoria in 1997’s Mrs. Brown, returns to the role in Victoria & Abdul, a look at the close friendship between Her Majesty and a young Indian clerk (Ali Fazal).

THEATER P. 23

There’s more music in the musical, but all of it remains generally stripped down and fueled by guitar, bass and drums. Instead of muscling up with strings, winds and brass, Broadway orchestrator and arranger Tom Kitt beefed up the sound with more voices and harmonies. For example, you’ll hear a pronounced difference between the Broadway cast version of “Give Me Novacaine,” and the one on the original Green Day album. The lyrics come through just a tad more clearly, as if we’re in a theater rather than club. The sound of the steel guitar is noticeably richer, with a more relaxed Hawaiian flavor. And at the onset of the thrashing section, the crescendo is more dramatic, the drums louder and added male voices yield an anthemic thrust. Reaching the soothing outro, a group of female backups caress the ears. But hold on: The prospect of seeing Actor’s Theatre musical director Ryan Stamey lead a Broadway-sized band into Hadley Theater isn’t any more likely than the possibility we’ll see more than three dozen flat-screen TV monitors stuck up on the back wall, as we would in the Broadway version of American Idiot. A violin and cello are promised, but the instrumental congregation will be trimmed from eight to five, a definite U-turn back to true punkrock intimacy. And we’ll see two guitars, just like on Broadway. Decker has been known to strap on a bass guitar himself, and he often lurks in the wings as a sound designer when he isn’t acting or directing. One of the most admirable Actor’s Theatre achievements over the years has been its ability to deliver the youthful energy of such high-voltage musicals as Hedwig and Rock of Ages without repulsing graying subscribers who prefer decibel levels below triple digits. “You know, this is always a tough balancing act,” Decker says. “Because our bands are legit power musicians who want everything to go to 11. But there is so much story in the lyrics of musicals, that if you can’t hear the words, you don’t know the story. So yeah, keeping it balanced and rocking is the challenge. “Our cast is doing a great job telling their story, and I think people will dig it,” he adds. “Or you can just go and rock the fuck out. Either way, your face will be melted.”

AMERICAN IDIOT 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21 (pay what you can); 8 p.m. Sept. 22-23 (previews); 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs. (through Oct. 12); 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. (through Oct. 14); 2:30 p.m. Sun. (through Oct. 8); $27-$50; Hadley Theater, 2211 Wellesley Ave.; 704342-2251; atcharlotte.org.

24 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

OCTOBER 13: Jackie Chan, usually seen in lighthearted action romps, turns deadly serious for The Foreigner, in which he plays a restaurateur seeking to avenge his daughter’s death ... Happy Death Day is basically Groundhog Day with a slasher-film twist, as a college student (Jessica Rothe) has to continuously relive the day she’s murdered until she can identify the killer. Ellen Page in ‘Flatliners.’

ARTS

COLUMBIA

FILM

FALL FILM FRENZY The return of Rick Deckard, Queen Victoria ... and Madea! BY MATT BRUNSON

T GOT OFF to a strong start, and by “it,” we mean both the fall film season and the Stephen King cinematic property that broke several box office records when it opened on Sept. 8. The fall season continued with Friday’s releases of mother! and American Assassin and will end in October, as November will see the launch of the year-end commercial and/or critical behemoths (jump-started by Thor: Ragnarok on Nov. 3). In the meantime, here’s a checklist of the wide releases we can expect to see over the course of the next six weeks. SEPTEMBER 22: Following the 2015 hit Kingsman: The Secret Service comes Kingsman: The Golden Circle, in which the members of the British spy outfit (including returning ones played by Taron Egerton, Mark Strong and Sophie Cookson) become involved with various heroes and villains (among them Channing Tatum, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges) from this side of the Atlantic ... Dave Franco and Jackie Chan are among those lending their vocals to The LEGO Ninjago Movie, in which The Green Ninja must defeat an evil warlord known as Garmadon, The Worst Guy Ever ... And we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that

WARNER

Ryan Gosling in ‘Blade Runner 2049.’ the Charlotte Film Festival opens on this date and runs through Oct. 1; among the many events on the schedule is the Sept. 23 international debut of Feral, a horror flick written and directed by former Charlottean Mark Young and co-written by current Charlottean (and former Creative Loafing video-game columnist) Adam Frazier.

SEPTEMBER 29: Tom Cruise reunites with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman for American Made, a fact-based tale about the CIA’s unlikeliest covert operative ... Battle of the Sexes centers on the samenamed tennis match that captivated the country as Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) squared off against Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) in 1973 ... Flatliners, a remake of the 1990 hit starring Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland, stars Ellen Page and Diego Luna as two of the five medical students who embark on dangerous experiments designed to give them a glimpse of the afterlife. OCTOBER 6: The long-awaited sequel to the 1982 ahead-of-its-time masterpiece, Blade Runner 2049 finds Harrison Ford returning as Rick Deckard, now an ex-cop who teams up with a new blade runner (Ryan Gosling) to solve a long-dormant mystery ... Emily Blunt and Liev Schreiber are among

OCTOBER 20: Tyler Perry again dons the dress for Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, in which the outspoken matriarch finds herself confronted by various monsters in a haunted campground ... It’s up to a scientist (Gerard Butler) to save the day when a satellite malfunction threatens the entire planet in the thriller Geostorm ... Josh Brolin, Jeff Bridges and Miles Teller star in Only the Brave, a true-life drama about a group of heroic firefighters ... Jo Nesbo’s international bestseller The Snowman receives the cinematic treatment with this thriller starring Michael Fassbender as a detective tracking down a serial killer. OCTOBER 27: The eighth film in the Saw series, Jigsaw finds the title fiend (again played by Tobin Bell) seemingly returning from the grave to commit more mayhem ... George Clooney provides the direction and the Coen Bros. provide the script for Suburbicon, starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac in a dark tale about the horrors of 1959 suburbia ... Miles Teller, Amy Schumer and Whale Rider’s Keisha Castle-Hughes are among those taking part in Thank You for Your Service, an adaptation of David Finkel’s book about U.S. soldiers attempting to return to civilian life after serving in Iraq.

the time to cast your vote is here. visit clclt.com

CLCLT.COM | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | 25

ENDS

SALOME’S STARS

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Someone has some suggestions to offer regarding your new project. You might find them helpful. Remember to avoid speculation and to stick with just the facts, Lamb. TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) An old friend suddenly reappears. Whether this proves to be a boon or a bane in the Bovine’s life depends on the reason for this surprising reappearance. Be cautious. GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Vital information finally emerges, allowing you to make that important personal decision. You can now move your focus to an upcoming professional development. CANCER (June 21 to July 22) You might not

like seeing so many on-the-job changes. But some of them could open new opportunities for the Moon Child’s talents to shine to your best advantage.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) An apparently solid-gold opportunity beckons the Lion. But check to see if all that dazzle isn’t just a sprinkling of surface glitter. Check it out before making a commitment. VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) A close friend could offer advice on how to handle a difficult family matter. But in the end, the decision has to be made based on what is best for you and those you love. LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Family problems are best worked out with all those concerned contributing suggestions that will 26 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM

ease tensions. Stay with it until a workable solution is found.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21)

Expect to hear more about an offer that has piqued your interest. You earn respect for insisting on solid facts, not just a fancy talk about potential opportunities.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December

21) What seemed to be a reasonable workplace request might need to be defended. Don’t fret. You have both the facts and a surprise ally on your side.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) A bit of capriciousness might be just what you need. Plan to kick up your heels in a round of fun and games with family and friends this weekend.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) Although some of your plans might have to be put on hold, things do begin to take a turn for the better by midweek. Your financial crunch also eases.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Your

financial picture begins to brighten by week’s end. There also are favorable changes in your personal life. Someone you care for has good news to report.

ENDS

LILLY SPA

CROSSWORD

704-392-8099 MON-SUN 9AM-11PM

THE POINTER BROTHERS (AND ONE SISTER) ACROSS

1 Say another way 8 Portuguese capital 14 Apply with a syringe 20 Get by will 21 Chant a mantra, e.g. 22 Vacillate 23 Scopes trial lawyer 25 Spirit and resilience 26 Going backpacking 27 Colorado ski mecca 28 Like sad excuses 29 Lingo suffix 30 Brewed beverages 32 Kickoff aids 34 Abominated 35 Roads: Abbr. 36 Bow out 38 Daddies 40 Big wild cats 41 Plug up 43 Most of them run on gas 45 Furthermore 48 Bonnie Parker’s partner in crime 51 Actor LeBlanc 55 Go after legally 56 Brewed beverage 57 Regards as 58 Mean fish 60 Quack’s cure-all 63 Pedicure targets 65 Horn honker 66 Closing part 67 “Rosemary’s Baby” star 71 Robert of “Vega$” 72 Preacher’s exhortation 74 Battle vestige 75 Pride of Mr. Universe 77 Window over a door 79 Major fad 82 Grain variety 83 Ending for press 84 New Year’s song word 85 He sang in a folk trio with Paul Stookey and Mary Travers 88 Sometimes-shocking fish 89 Gown fabric 90 Get ready, for short 91 Look on and offer unwelcome advice 95 Pear discard 98 Dance move 100 To’s opposite

103 Satire device 104 Winter glider 106 Fruity drinks 108 “Dancing With the Stars” judge Goodman 109 Farm sounds 110 Trial excuse 112 Not idle 114 Promptly 117 Lead role in “Pirates of the Caribbean” 120 Couldn’t do without 121 Not present 122 Country singer Lynn 123 Commands 124 Pundit Myers 125 Honda minivan

DOWN

1 Wealth 2 Join a force 3 Shivers 4 Actress Garr or Hatcher 5 Sports site 6 Sensation of slight prickles 7 Plus other things: Abbr. 8 Jar toppers 9 Unfitting 10 Meryl of the screen 11 Brunei’s island 12 Artist Yoko 13 Just-made 14 Belief suffix 15 Formerly surnamed 16 Overseas travel woe 17 Plantation, e.g. 18 More serene 19 Some woolen coats 24 With no difficulty 31 Cry out 33 More scanty 34 That lad’s 37 New York Jets coach Bowles 39 South, in Spain 40 Namely 42 “Aw, shucks” 44 Blouse, e.g. 45 Puts forward 46 Convent 47 Poker-faced 48 Corp. head

49 Certain electron stream 50 Love, to Livy 51 Native New Zealander 52 Of a much earlier era 53 “Love Song” band of 1989 54 North Carolinian, colloquially 56 Shore birds 59 Drive (out) 61 City in New Hampshire 62 Fleur-de- -64 Soak 68 Emphasizes 69 Jamie of “M*A*S*H” 70 Cried out in excitement 73 November birthstone 76 Ship’s veer 78 Came upon 80 Nuke 81 Makes a flub 86 “-- folly to be wise” 87 Hold on to 89 Porkers’ pen 91 Tokyo robe 92 Clothes smoother 93 Kicked out 94 Not alfresco 96 Go by 97 Unfroze 99 Legume seed vessel 100 Plays at love 101 Cast another ballot 102 Unreciprocal 105 Keaton of film 107 Hair-raising 111 Chomp on 113 Very, to Gigi 115 Sea, to Gigi 116 Periodical team, briefly 117 Ill-bred man 118 “Honest” prez 119 -- Poke (candy brand)

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I am a 35-year-old straight guy. I met a nice lady through the normal methods, and we hit it off and have grown closer. I think we are both considering “taking it to the next level.” We are on the same intellectual wavelength, enjoy the same social experiences, and have a lot of fun together. So what could be the problem? My friend decided it was the time to inform me that she is transgender, pre-op, and will not be having genderreassignment surgery. This was quite a shock to me. I’m not homophobic, though I’ve never had a gay experience. I’m open-minded, yet there is a mental block. I like this person, I like our relationship thus far, and I want to continue this relationship. But I’m in a state of confusion.

willing to make an exception for a particular dick (after falling in love with a woman who has one), but most straight guys aren’t into dick (other than their own). Since you’re confused about what to do, COCK, I would encourage you to continue dating this woman, keep an open mind, and keep taking things slow. You’ve got new information to process, and some things — or one thing — to think about before taking this relationship to the next level. But don’t drag it out. If you conclude that the dick is a deal breaker, end this relationship with compassion and alacrity. You don’t want to keep seeing her “to be nice” if you know a relationship isn’t possible. Because letting someone live in false hope is always a dick move.

A few months ago, I started dating someone. I made it clear early on that I didn’t feel comfortable being Lemme get this out of in a nonmonogamous way first, COCK: The nice relationship. They said lady isn’t a man, so sex that’s not usually what with her wouldn’t be a they’re into but they “gay experience” and weren’t interested in homophobia isn’t the seeing anyone else and relevant term. they had no problem DAN SAVAGE Moving on… being monogamous. It’s You’re a straight guy, you’re not that I don’t trust them, attracted to women, and some and they’ve never given any women — as you now know — have indication that they’re unhappy dicks. Are you into dick? Could you develop a with our arrangement, but I can’t taste for dick? Could you see yourself making shake the fears that, though they won’t an exception for her dick? It’s fine if “no” is admit it (maybe even to themselves), the answer to one or all of these questions, they’d prefer it if our relationship were COCK, and not being into dick doesn’t make more open and I’m taking something you transphobic. Evan Urquhart, who writes important away from them. Can about trans issues for Slate, argues that in someone who usually doesn’t “do” addition to being gay, straight, bi, pan, demi, monogamy feel fulfilled in a “closed” etc., some people are phallophiles and some relationship? Can it work out, or will are vaginophiles — that is, some people they just slowly grow to resent me for (perhaps most) have a strong preference for this? either partners with dicks or partners with DELIRIOUSLY ANXIOUS MONOGAMIST NERVOUSLY vaginas. And some people — most people — INQUIRES TODAY want their dicks on men and their labia on/ vaginas in women. If you stay together forever — what most “There’s no shame in it, as long as it people mean by “work out” — your partner doesn’t come from a place of ignorance will definitely grow to resent you. It could or hate,” Urquhart writes. “Mature adults be for this reason, DAMNIT, or for some should be able to talk plainly about their other reason, but all people in long-term sexuality, particularly with prospective relationships resent their partners for partners, in a way that doesn’t objectify or something. So if monogamy is the price of shame anyone who happens to be packing admission this person is willing to pay, let the non-preferred equipment.” them pay it. There are a lot of people out Some straight guys are really into dick there in closed relationships who would (trans women with male partners usually rather be in open ones and vice versa. And aren’t partnered with gay men, and trans remember: What works for you as a couple women who do sex work typically don’t have — and what you want as an individual — can any gay male clients), some straight guys are change over time. CONFUSED OVER COMPLICATING KNOWLEDGE

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ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? Football season takes Sunday Fundays to another level ONCE FOOTBALL SEASON starts, the

building in my friend’s eyes as she turned to our other friend to remind her how much sights, sounds and smells are always the same in the Queen City on Sunday morning. fun the tailgate was going to be on Sunday. It doesn’t matter if the Panthers play at 1 Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to be going with p.m., which parking lot you tailgate in or if them and I already had FOMO. you even like sports at all, you’ll know what On game day, tailgaters were up and at day it is as soon as you step outside. ‘em by 9:30 a.m. No lie. I woke up to a text Hamburgers, beer, vomit, porta potties from my girl, “Guys. ‘Member when we were and faces that will scream, “I’m hungover” gunna be good? I know, I may have been at work the next morning. *Inhales deep,* the only one that said it. But I didn’t do it. oh yeah, that’s what Sunday Funday and But the mother fucking Buffalo Bills are football are all about. here bayyyybeeee.” I cracked up immediately Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge sports buff. I know, gasp, a social faux pas thinking about how lit she must have been that most sports fanatics would argue is the night before and here she was, texting way worse than previous blunders, which us at 9 a.m. ready to go. I knew a may or may not include throwing tailgate party would be a terrible up in an Uber. However, I try to idea for my Monday morning, redeem myself by throwing especially when they ended on a Panthers jersey and up getting there at 11 a.m. finding the nearest bar (Little did I know I would to rally with the best of end up going out after the them. game anyways.) This past weekend, for instance, Buffalo Bills I settled for watching fans came out in droves all of the Snapchat and and took over the city. My Instagram stories of girls gathered to celebrate tailgaters having the time AERIN SPRUILL a birthday at Suffolk Punch of their lives. It was the first in South End on Friday and Panthers home game of the instead of going to our usual season, the so-called Bills Mafia was watering hole, we decided to spread in full effect and everyone was ready to get our wings a bit. For our first stop, we settled lit. I moped around the house wondering on “the new Gin Mill” aka The Brickyard. whether I should get in on the action for In case you’re wondering, nothing’s really changed other than the tunes playing a few hours or attempt to adult. That’s over the speakers — you can even still get when I discovered that my washing machine popcorn. was broken and had leaked into the condo After a drink, we closed out and rounded beneath mine. Yeah, after a series of the corner. While one of my friends is a unfortunate leaks and random repairs, this Buffalo Bills fan, I was completely oblivious was just the icing on the cake. Naturally, that to the fact that we’d be stumbling into a meant I needed to go out and unwind. Don’t Friday night tailgate complete with cornhole ask me why, we’ll blame it on that Panthers boards, pajama pants and bros. The tailgate “W” and those rowdy Buffalo Bills. scene in the parking lot shared by Tavern On As I walked to work the next morning, the Tracks and old Gin Mill was terrifying and thrilling all at the same time. It was I counted the beer cans along my path only Friday, two days before game day? Now, littering the street. I felt like I could still that’s what I call a pregame. smell the scent of PBR and vomit in the Fortunately, everyone was already so air. While the idea of either was completely drunk I didn’t have to concern myself with nauseating, I smiled thinking about how playing the part of “my team is better than even though I knock it, football season is yours,” and we were able to slide into a really one of the most exciting times to be in few chairs on the patio outside of Tavern the Q.C. Y’all might just make a true fan out and “politely” takeover someone’s table. of me just yet! What’s your favorite football We watched the madness unfold from a season memory in the Queen? safe distance while someone serenaded us BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM with live music. I could see the excitement

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32 | SEPT. 21 - SEPT. 27, 2017 | CLCLT.COM