2018 11 Issue 11 Creative loafing Charlotte by Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | MAY 3 - 9, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 11

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NEWS&CULTURE IN THE TRENCHES Ray McKinnon looks to move from political activism to elected office

BY RYAN PITKIN 7 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 9 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN 9 NEWS OF THE WEIRD

FOOD&DRINK IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL A Munching Tour that takes

you around the globe in two hours BY RYAN PITKIN

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TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

MUSIC WORMHOLES EXPAND The Charlotte space-rock trio propagandizes for love

BY MARK KEMP 18 MUSIC NEWS: ‘I MISS THE OLD KANYE’ MUSIC EVENT BY MARK KEMP 20 SOUNDBOARD

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE Activist art show strikes notes of defiance and hope

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NEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

*EXPERIENCE

TEAR DOWN THAT WALL

*INTERGRITY

Be subversive — experience the cuisines of other countries — but don’t call it “ethnic”

*LEADERSHIP

IS THERE ANY better place to come

To show this, Hanchett began his tour together and learn about each other than at a in a tiny area of the city — a parking lot dinner table? There’s music, of course; there’s at the corner of North Sharon Amity and festivals, sporting events, school plays. But Albemarle roads — where participants could when it comes to getting down to that primal walk from one restaurant or market to the place where everyone lives — even Donald next, exploring the array of available food Trump — food is about as fundamental as experiences. Ryan talks with Tsige Meshasha and it gets. When I first arrived back in North Carolina her husband Zerabruk Abay, owners of the in 2002 after living in New York and Los Nile Grocery, an Ethiopian coffee shop and Angeles the previous 15 years, I feared losing grocery store; Meena Chamlagai, who owns the breadth of international food choices I’d the Rohan Grocery, a Himalayan bazaar; grown accustomed to. Living in those cities Palestinian Izzat Freitekh, whose La Shish in my 20s and 30s, I learned more about Kabab serves Middle Eastern cuisine; and the the things that bring people and cultures Syrian owners of the Golden Bakery, which together than I’d ever known — simply by sells sweet baklava and other treats. These restaurateurs and market owners breaking bread and talking with folks at the share with Ryan their experiences of how Ethiopian, Moroccan, Israeli, Lebanese, they wound up in Charlotte, each Indian, Dominican, Mexican, Thai very personal and different. and other restaurants and Freitekh operated a sandwich markets in and around the shop in his hometown of various neighborhoods Old City, Jerusalem, in where I lived. Israel, before moving to Though Charlotte was Charlotte 10 years ago to much quieter in 2002 be nearer to his son, a than it is today, it was student at UNC Charlotte. changing. But since I’d Abay, an Ethiopian textile been away for so long engineer who moved here and knew little about the 19 years ago, tells Ryan that demographic shifts that had the Queen City’s expanding occurred across the South MARK KEMP immigrant community makes in my absence, I assumed the him feel much more at home here Queen City was the same sleepy nowadays than ever before. fried chicken and barbecue town it was But not all Charlotteans are comfortable when I left N.C. back in the 1980s. Two Charlotteans quickly re-educated with these changes, which is why Hanchett me: one was Charlotte Observer food writer sees breaking bread among people of different Kathleen Purvis, who immediately took me cultures as essential to breaking down to a Peruvian restaurant for lunch; the other barriers. “I think we are wired as mammals to was Tom Hanchett, then-staff historian at be uncomfortable with difference,” Hanchett the Levine Museum of the New South. I tells Ryan. “But if you study ecology, found Hanchett to be not just an academic difference is what makes ecology work.” It’s important to point out, however, that historian who walked dusty old museum halls, pointing to yellowed photographs and although experiencing cuisines of different old narratives of times and places far removed cultures is a great way to bridge cultures, from the here and now; he was a practical there are ways of doing this that further historian who drew direct lines from the past separate us. Last year, my old Observer to the present. He seemed to understand that colleague Purvis wrote a column on why there’s really no such thing as time or place; seeing foods of different cultures as “ethnic” we all occupy this big blue ball together in a actually builds even larger walls between “us” and the “other.” living, breathing, morphing continuum. “There’s an uncomfortable truth here, So when CL news editor Ryan Pitkin announced in our editorial meeting last week isn’t there?” she wrote. “The darker the skin that he was taking a Charlotte City Walks of the people doing the cooking, the more “Munching Tour” of the world of food in likely it is that someone will pull out the E the Q.C., and Hanchett was leading it, I word . . . Caucasian is an ethnic group. Does immediately thought it would make a great anyone call Cracker Barrel or Red Lobster ethnic restaurants?” cover story. So come together with us this week and “I grew up in a black and white South where we were supposed to be separate,” let’s learn more about each other over our Hanchett tells Ryan in his story on page 10. wonderfully eclectic cuisines. But leave the “And we are now in a Technicolor South, other E word — ethnic — at the door. MKEMP@CLCLT.COM where everything is all mixed up.”

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NEWS

perspective.” And that’s not disregarding the work of folks who came before us. But I think the county is ready. I think folks are seeing, especially in the county commission, what happens when you have entrenched people who maybe feel entitled to their position. And they forget that it’s a public trust and that they don’t own it, it’s the people’s seat.

FEATURE

IN THE TRENCHES Ray McKinnon looks to move from political activism to elected office BY RYAN PITKIN

ECKLENBURG

COUNTY

Board of Commissioners atlarge candidate Ray McKinnon’s campaign slogan is “Justice, Mercy and Hostility.” If you’ve got any doubts that those are his priorities, check his forearm; it’s tattooed on him in black ink. The slogan comes from McKinnon’s favorite bible verse, Micah 6:8, which reads, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” The verse perfectly embodies McKinnon’s career as a pastor and public servant focused on issues around social justice. In the leadup to the primary election on May 8, we sat with the 37-year-old father of five at Rhino Market & Deli to discuss the change he wants to help make at the county level, the role of faith in his community work and his thoughts on today’s political climate. Creative Loafing: Since moving here in 2012 from Greensboro, you’ve been active in politics, co-founding New South Progressives among others. Has politics been a lifelong passion for you? Ray McKinnon: I’ve always been pretty active. I was an intern in Guilford County when I was in college. Civics is the only class that I got a 99 in. I’ve just always been intrigued by politics, and that’s always been a part of who I am. How did New South Progressives come about? Sebastian Feculak, Lula Dualeh and I started it shortly after we all returned from the [2016] DNC. All three of us were delegates for Bernie Sanders. All of us were also involved in party politics. We decided that we had a lot of people who were newly involved in politics here locally, who helped Bernie Sanders, and we didn’t want that to go to waste. And so we decided that you had all these people who understood how to organize so we wanted to do something with it, so we started New South Progressives shortly before September 2016, around July-August. The Extraordinary Event Ordinance was the first thing we tackled, and that’s what we’re talking about with local policy stuff. We saw Braxton [Winston] get arrested because of the EEO, and it was the thing that we spent our first year working on to get repealed and we eventually did get it repealed. And for us, 8 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Ray McKinnon (left) with former Mayor Harvey Gantt. New South Progressives, we don’t want to just say we’re going to protest something, which we have and we’ve demonstrated, but how do we take that passion and effect real change. Why run for county board? Folks have asked me, “Well, why didn’t you run for city council?” For me, God bless what city council does, but what they’re responsible for, I don’t get excited about transportation, I don’t get excited about that sort of thing. For me, it’s Health and Human Services, Parks and Recreation, things that really directly impact my family. My wife’s a public school teacher. The county I think too often has an adversarial relationship with school board. They don’t work collaboratively. They’re suspicious. All of our kids are adopted through the public foster care service, so we have this deep respect and admiration for social workers and understanding the role that they do and the support that they need. Of course, parks. We spend a lot of time at Hornets Nest Park down the road from our house. Those are things that get me passionate. Your fellow New South Progressives cofounder Lula Dualeh ran for a county seat two years ago and lost, but it looks like she was just ahead of her time with the new wave of younger city council members just voted in. Do you think the county board is ready for a similar wave? I hope so. But I think the challenge for Lula was that she was running in a district against an entrenched incumbent. Clearly I’m hoping the county is ready. We’re making this push, [fellow at-large candidate] Jamie Hildreth and I. Jamie is also a younger guy, we have this sense that the county is ready for change. The city council had a wave and it wasn’t just from millennials or young people, there are other folks, older folks who are ready. Today I met with Mayor Gantt, and he said, “I think it’s time for us to get fresh

What would you like to see change on the commission? By their actions, I don’t feel like the county commission understands collaboration. Certainly they don’t understand it with each other. You’ve got the Democrats fighting each other. You’ve got the Democrats handing control of the commission effectively over to the Republicans, to commissioner [Jim] Puckett, and they’re not working together. It’s ridiculous. They’re not listening to each other. We have six Democrats and three Republicans. You have Democrats colluding with the Republicans, and now effectively, Jim Puckett runs the show. Jim Puckett, the same guy who said, “Arm the teachers, kids are too soft.” This guy is running the show. I’m like, “Sheesh, you could’ve at least given it to Matthew [Ridenhour], if we’re just giving it away.” But to be clear, if I’m on the county commission, and we have a 6-3 majority, we’re not giving leadership positions away. For me, as a Democratic activist, as a Democratic party leader who worked my butt off to get Democrats elected — why are we working so hard to get Democrats elected when y’all are just going to cede control to the Republicans? And why aren’t we holding them accountable for that? This is the first election that we get to hold them accountable for that, and we should. You served on the Charlotte Housing Authority, and I know that’s a passion of yours. The affordable housing crisis is seen as more of a city issue, but is there some role the county can play in addressing it? I think the first question I’d love to ask, and I really don’t know the answer to this, is: What role can we collaboratively play where you have a city/county partnership and tackle the crisis for housing? Folks who make 30 percent below [the area median income], there’s nothing for them. Certainly it’s hard for teachers and police officers and firefighters, it really is, I know that, but for people who live in the Brookhill community I serve, if we lose Brookhill, that’s 389-plus people that we don’t know where they’re going to live. And this is the crisis. So we ask the question, “What can we do? Can we tackle this collaboratively?” How does your career as a pastor play into your role regarding community service and politics? I like to say that my running for office is a continuation of my service, a continuation of what I feel like is my calling. I often tell people, “Yeah I’m a Democrat, proudly a Democrat, I’m a progressive, proudly progressive, not in spite of my faith but because of it.” For me, the core of my faith is this belief in redemption, this belief in justice. I’m United Methodist, and we have

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RAY MCKINNON

Family man: Ray with his brother, Aron McKinnon. this saying that “There’s no gospel apart from the social gospel.” I have to concern myself with the way my neighbor is treated. I have to concern myself with systems of injustice and systems of oppression, and not only do I need to concern myself with those, it’s part of the call to dismantle those and to erect in its place just systems. It seems there’s a widening gulf between conservative Christianity and progressive Christianity. It seems the message being spread by evangelist conservative Christians is so far off from what you just said. What are your thoughts on that? We work not just for peace but for positive peace. Justice is at the heart of what I try to do. Righting wrongs is part of our mandate. Caring about how our other siblings are treated is part of our mandate. One of the things I say to my church probably every week is that our job is to bring light where there’s darkness. The gospel is good news, and if people leave your presence feeling broken down and judged and just put upon, there’s something wrong with that. If you look at the example of our Christ, there are very few people who left his presence feeling beaten down, and the people who did were folks who thought they were righteous, who thought that they had it together and that they were better than other people. But even the people who messed up, who missed the mark, when they left his presence, they left feeling encouraged, they left knowing that they were loved, knowing that they matter. And that’s what my faith tells me, and that informs my politics and informs the things that I advocate for. I had a lady say on our Facebook page for my church, “Your pastor needs to worry less about the social justice stuff and more about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ,” and the response from our person was, “That’s exactly what he’s doing.” But this idea of a pastor working in politics, working for justice, it’s less novel in the black church than it is in the white church. Visit clclt.com for the full interview. RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

GRAND ENTRANCE Two suspects were

not worried about staying inconspicuous when they tried to break into Rhino Market & Deli one night last week. Police responded to the west Charlotte business at around 1:30 a.m. one morning to find the front window smashed out and a sledgehammer laying next to the damaged storefront. While the suspects weren’t shy about making noise breaking the window, they changed attitudes when they heard the alarm go off and both fled the scene before ever entering the building.

WATCH ME An equally brash suspect came

into a Goodwill on South Boulevard last week and immediately began shoplifting in such a manner that staff and fellow patrons couldn’t help but see. Police reported that the woman entered the store at about 5 p.m. and went over to the women’s section and picked out multiple items of clothing. She then went into the women’s dressing room with this large selection and came out within minutes holding only a small fraction of the clothes she went in with. While concealing some of the clothes under the ones she wore, employees also reported that she had filled up her own purse with clothes, along with a purse that she grabbed from a shelf when she walked into the dressing room. The suspect made a clean getaway, although employees wrote down her license plate number.

PEEP THIS Police were able to catch a

peeping Tom near Reedy Creek thanks to the actions of a resident not scared to act to protect his family. Upon the officers’ arrival, they spoke to a 36-year-old man who said he saw a man standing inside his fenced-in patio and peering into his windows. The man’s 76-year-old mother, 29-year-old wife and 11-year-old daughter were also home at the time. The reporting man went outside to confront the suspect, who then assaulted the resident. The suspect was apparently no match for the resident, however, as the resident was able to subdue him and hold him until police arrived. The suspect was charged with “Peeping Tom” (yes, that’s an actual charge), simple assault and trespassing.

THANKS FOR THE RIDE A well-meaning northwest Charlotte couple stopped to pick up a hitchhiker in the southern part of the city last week, and soon regretted it after becoming a little too comfortable with their new friend. The couple told police that after picking up the hitchhiker, they stopped at a Harris Teeter in the Ballantyne area. The two made a misguided decision by leaving the keys of their GMC Sierra inside the vehicle along with the hitchhiker. When they came back out to the parking lot after buying their groceries … well, you know what happened. No more Sierra.

NEWS

SPOILED A 37-year-old mother in the

Ballantyne area filed a police report last week after her son’s response to not getting allowance was enough to raise some red flags. The woman told police that “the suspect got angry about her not giving him any money and used bodily force and broke a mirror in the living room,” according to the report. The mirror only cost $15, and the woman said she did not want to file any criminal charges, but just wanted the incident documented.

BURNING POINT In another incidence of

children flipping the fuck out for no good reason, a child at Turning Point Academy in northwest Charlotte became angry at his school punishment last week and threw a fit that landed him in trouble with the law. According to the report, the student “became upset when he realized he was being suspended from school,” then cursed at administrators, ripped paper down from the bulletin board, threw a chair and punched a fire extinguisher cabinet, breaking the plastic window and doing $30 in damage. Because that will surely make them want to let you back in school.

LUXURIOUS ATTITUDE It’s not just kids

who throw fits. One woman became enraged at a car dealership in southeast Charlotte last week and her resulting actions only cost her more money than she had already lost. Staff at B&M Luxury Auto off East Independence Boulevard told police that a woman on the lot had lost her money, then became so upset that she couldn’t find it that she threw a rock through the driver-side window and windshield of a 2005 Hyundai Accent, putting her $500 further in the hole than she already had been.

EVERYTHING BUT… A construction supervisor at a site in southeast Charlotte filed a report last week after some unknown suspect stole some home furnishings from a home that was under construction. While normally thieves may break into a house and steal everything but the kitchen sink, as the expression goes, this one was working backwards. The only thing listed as stolen in the report, in fact, was the kitchen sink, worth $600. MILK BOMB Police responded to a Burger King on Nations Ford Road recently after a woman was attacked at work in the worst possible way — or most embarrassing way, for that matter. The 23-year-old employee told police that she was working the drivethru window when a customer launched a milkshake back at her that she had just served them. The victim did not suffer any injuries, only some hurt pride. All stories are pulled from police reports at CMPD headquarters. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

WAIT, WHAT? In Dorking, England, Chris Hepworth and his partner, Tanisha Prince, both of London, dove across the finish line in one minute and 37 seconds, setting a course record and capturing the coveted U.K. Wife Carrying championship on April 8. Any adult couple can compete in the contest — married or not and regardless of gender — which consists of one team member carrying the other, most using the “Estonian carry,” with the “wife” upside-down, her legs over her partner’s shoulders and gripping him around the waist from behind. About 40 pairs competed over the quarter-mile course strewn with hay bales and mud, Reuters reported. Hepworth and Prince plan to move on to the world finals in Finland. “I think a Finnish guy wins it every year,” Hepworth noted, “so it’ll be good to go there and take them down.” WHAT’S IN A NAME? In Ohio in 2004,

6-year-old Alex Malarkey spent two months in a coma after a car accident, awaking as a quadriplegic and telling his family he had visited heaven, seeing angels and meeting Jesus. Alex and his dad, Kevin Malarkey, co-wrote a best-selling book in 2010, “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” but in 2015, Alex admitted he had made up the story to get attention. “I did not die. I did not go to heaven,” Alex told The Guardian. In a recent effort to set the record straight, Alex filed a complaint April 9 in DuPage County, Illinois, against the book’s publisher, Tyndale House, alleging that “any reasonable person would have realized that it was highly unlikely that the content of the book was true.” The Washington Post reported that while Kevin Malarkey is not a party to the suit — which cites several Illinois statutes regarding the right to privacy, defamation and financial exploitation of a person with a disability, among others — it does allege that Alex’s dad concocted and sold the story to Tyndale. The younger Malarkey did not receive any royalties from the sales of the book.

SELF AMUSEMENT Richland Carrousel

Park in Mansfield, Ohio, a family-oriented destination, just wanted to provide a seasonal attraction for kids who wanted to pose for a picture with the Easter Bunny. But Ladonna Hughett, 54, had other things in mind on March 24 when she plopped into the bunny’s lap, grabbed him in inappropriate ways and made lewd comments, reported Fox 8 Cleveland. She then moved on to ride a horse on the carousel, also in ways witnesses described as lewd. “As soon as you think you hear all,” said Mansfield Assistant Police Chief Keith Porch, “I’ve never heard of somebody performing those types of acts on the Easter Bunny.” Hughett was arrested for public drunkenness and is no longer welcome at the amusement park.

SPECIAL SAUCE McDonald’s drive-thrus

are a chill place to be, if three recent events are any indication. On March 17, police officers called to a McDonald’s restaurant in Okeechobee, Florida, found Derril James Geller of West Palm Beach had passed out in his car while waiting in line. Geller was arrested for driving on a suspended license (a crime for which he had been charged three previous times). But that’s just the tip of the ice cream cone: The Okeechobee News reported that in January, an Okeechobee woman was charged with DUI after passing out at a different area McDonald’s drive-thru, and in December, a Texas man also received a DUI for nodding off in the line at that same McDonald’s.

MONKEY MUMMY Workers renovating

the old Dayton’s department store in downtown Minneapolis came across an unusual find in early April: the mummified remains of a monkey. The store apparently had a pet department in the 1960s, and The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported that Steven Laboe, who worked in the building in the early 2000s, heard stories of a monkey escaping into an air conditioning duct, where it may have met its fate in the form of an exhaust fan. In fact, the mummy does show an injury to the abdomen. “We continue to find pieces of history in the Dayton’s project as we redevelop the building,” Cailin Rogers, a spokeswoman for the redevelopment team, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

EIGHT LEG SPECIAL At Bull City Burger

and Brewery in Durham, North Carolina, April is Exotic Meat Month! This year, according to WTVD, the restaurant offered a tarantula challenge. Customers were invited to enter their name in a raffle, and if chosen could claim a $30 tarantula burger, which included a pasture-raised beef patty, gruyere cheese, spicy chili sauce — and an oven-roasted zebra tarantula. Those who finished the burger received a commemorative “tarantula challenge” T-shirt.

MY WEIRD OBSESSION You may have

read that the company that makes Necco Wafers announced in March that it would have to shut down in May unless a buyer was found. Since then, crazed Necco fans have been stockpiling candy. “Necco Wafers are up 150 percent,” Candystore.com reported in a blog post. “A clear signal of panic-buying.” Katie Samuels, 23, of Florida tried to strike a deal with Candystore.com, a wholesaler. “I offered to trade my 2003 Honda Accord for all of their stock,” Samuels told the Boston Globe. “I don’t have much right now, so I was like, ‘I’ve got this car, and I want all that candy,’ so maybe they would consider it.” Candystore didn’t accept her offer, but Samuels did buy 48 rolls of candy using her credit card. COPYRIGHT 2017 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 9

FOOD

COVERSTORY

MUNCHING TOUR: SOUTH BOULEVARD Explore foods from Vietnam, Syria and Dominican Republic in one city block. Bring $25 for food. Saturday, May 5 2-4 p.m.; tinyurl.com/CLTCityWalks

IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL A Munching Tour that takes you around the globe in two hours BY RYAN PITKIN

GROUP OF seven of us sat around a couple of tables pulled together inside La Shish Kabob restaurant in east Charlotte. At the tables directly next to us sat more than a dozen Middle Eastern men, apparently a Saudi Arabian delegation visiting Charlotte with U.S. State Department representatives. Elsewhere in the small dining room, people of different ethnicities and nationalities enjoyed their food. At our table, a Latinx woman placed bowls and plates holding creamy baba ghanoush, hummus, perfectly fried falafel and lamb kabob over a soft bed of yellow rice. When all the food was on the table, local historian Tom Hanchett, our food tour guide for the afternoon, read a passage from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a 1961 book written by renowned urban studies writer Jane Jacobs. The passage couldn’t be more relevant in today’s Charlotte. “Cities need old buildings so badly, it’s probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them,” Hanchett read from the book. “By old buildings, I mean not museum-piece old buildings, not old buildings in an expensive and excellent state of rehabilitation, though that’s fine, but also good, plain, ordinary, low-value buildings including some run-down old buildings. “If the city only has new buildings, enterprises that can exist there are automatically limited to those that can support the high cost of construction ... Chain stores, chain restaurants and banks go into new construction. But neighborhood bars, foreign restaurants and pawn shops go into older buildings.” The shopping center we sat in was the perfect example of what Jacobs found so important about old buildings, and it served as the center of Hanchett’s first “Munching Tour” of the year on Tuesday, May 1. In these tours, Hanchett aims to “travel the world from a single parking lot,” meaning he brings the 25 or so people who have signed up for the tour to a city block, from which attendees can enjoy food and culture from a number of different countries, all within walking distance of each other. Perhaps nowhere in Charlotte is better built for such a project than the unassuming 10 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Lamb and rice (above) from La Shish Kabob, owned by Izzat Freitekh (right). shopping center at the corner of North Sharon Amity and Albemarle roads, where La Shish Kabob sits. In late April, I joined Hanchett and some others for a preview of this year’s Charlotte City Walks program, which will hold various neighborhood tours — not all of them culinary — throughout May. In its first six years, Charlotte City Walks has helped more than 1,000 people get to know their neighborhoods and the neighborhoods around them.

“I am not so comfortable with melting pot because it connotes the fact that you’re supposed to give up all of your traditions and become something new. We are definitely becoming something new, but we are all keeping pieces of our traditions, and that’s a tasty thing,” Hanchett explained. “They’re all mixed up like veggies in a tossed salad. It’s not melting. Though there’s a little bit of interesting

“People out here that have lived here for years, they don’t always see the restaurants that are here and the grocery stores as serving them. They’ll say they’re in a food desert. Well, obviously it’s not a food desert. But it’s a Harris Teeter desert.” TOM WARSHAUER, CHARLOTTE HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES In Hanchett’s Munching Tours, that knowledge comes through food, namely the food of immigrant communities. The Sharon Amity Munching Tour covered four different immigrant-owned businesses, but various others can be found within a block of the same shopping center. Hanchett said the tour was designed to showcase a South that looks very different from the one he grew up in. “I grew up in a black and white South where we were supposed to be separate,” Hanchett recalled. “And we are now in a Technicolor South where everything is all mixed up.” Hanchett even coined a term, “salad bowl suburbs,” to describe neighborhoods like the one we visited for his first Munching Tour. He believes the term does a better job of describing spots where cultures collide than the well-intentioned but misleading cliché “melting pot.” The distinction is subtle, but important.

fusion at the edges sometimes.” All those cultures coming together in one spot can bring tensions sometimes, too, and city leaders hope to use Charlotte City Walks to inspire ideas about how to better integrate immigrants into Charlotte communities. Tom Warshauer, assistant director of community engagement with the city’s Housing and Neighborhood Services department, joining the group for the preview Muching Tour lunch. Warshauer said he plans to work with the Charlotte City Walks program — especially the Munching Tours, each of which will focus on immigrant-owned restaurants — to help the city integrate immigrants into civic life more efficiently. Warshauer said that in recent years city planners have become more aware of an apathy for civic engagement among the immigrant population, an issue he and other city staff members hope to fix in the near future.

According to Warshauer, events like City Walks can also bring together neighborhoods where tensions have developed following changes in demographics. For example, Warshauer said the city often deals with coding enforcement calls against immigrants who don’t cut their lawn as often as their neighbors, or who may park on grass because they don’t come from cultures where a nice front yard is a priority. “We know that people are uncomfortable with newcomers in old, traditional neighborhoods,” Warshauer said. “People out here that have lived here for years, they don’t always see the [immigrant] restaurants that are here and the [immigrant] grocery stores as serving them. They’ll say they’re in a food desert. Well, obviously it’s not a food desert. But it’s a Harris Teeter desert.” The nearby food that exists in these neighborhoods could be the great equalizer, Warshauer said. “Some of what they’re used to is gone, but what they’re getting in return is pretty phenomenal, it’s just not familiar. What we really want is for people to be more comfortable with one another and to be good neighbors with one another. We think that people want to be good neighbors, too, but there’s a lot for them to learn on both sides about what being neighborly means.”

TO BEGIN THE tour, we visited Tsige Meshasha and her husband Zerabruk Abay at Nile Grocery, a hybrid Ethiopian coffee

La Shish Kabob’s baba ganoush. shop and grocery store that the couple owns. While Meshasha roasted coffee beans for an Ethiopian coffee ceremony and handed out snacks like bread, roasted barley and popcorn, Abay described how he spent years studying textile engineering in Soviet Russia before moving to Germany and eventually Charlotte 19 years ago and finding that all the factories had shut down. “I had information that there are many textile factories here, so that was why,” Abay said when asked how he chose Charlotte. The couple decided to pursue a Plan B, and that involved opening up Nile Grocery. They also helped establish Charlotte’s first Ethiopian Orthodox church. Though they are happy to help other Ethiopian immigrants who are looking for ingredients to cook traditional dishes, Abay and Meshasha agree that most of their coffee shop customers are American now. The dashed dreams of working in textile no longer bother Abay. “I prefer to live in Charlotte. It’s growing good,” he said. “The number of immigrants is growing dramatically in terms of numbers. And in terms of our faith, we had only one church and now we have four or five churches. The number is growing.” Shops like Nile and the nearby Rohan Grocery, a Himalayan bazaar where we would travel next, are about more than food, said Hanchett while enjoying some of Meshaha’s injera, an Ethiopian bread that in recent years has become popular internationally. “[Nile Grocery] has always been a hybrid grocery and restaurant, but the main thing that it is is a community center,” he said. “We tend to think of groceries as corporate in American culture, but in the cultures that are coming here, there are small mom and pop businesses. The kids are often here at night studying, meeting friends and this coffee ceremony is an important thing about socializing in Ethiopia.” Across Driftwood Drive, at Rohan Grocery, Meena Chamlagai serves a similar role for

PHOTOS BY RYAN PITKIN

incoming immigrants from the Himalayan region. When Chamlagai was 5 years ago, she and her family were exiled from Bhutan and lived in a Nepalese refugee camp for 18 years before finally being accepted to move to America through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Chamlagai worked for a separate company for some years before opening Rohan Grocery with three other family members. She now uses the store as a rallying point for other refugees and immigrants who may be struggling with their arrival to the United States. “If they organize some program, we donate, we help,” Chamlagai said. “When new people come, we help them.” Within the aisles of Rohan Grocery, there’s no shortage of goods for visitors looking to cook up a feast. Customers can find large bags of madras mix, kala chana, spicy green vatana, soya wadi chunks and ghee, among countless other ingredients one won’t find in the local Harris Teeter. Before we left, Chamlagai handed each tour member a piece of coconut candy and emphasized that she hoped we would return on our own. She mentioned how thankful she is for Hanchett, who began bringing his Munching Tours through Rohan two years ago, and has introduced many new customers to her store. And that’s Hanchett’s mission in the end. As we arrived at our next spot, La Shish Kabob for the lunch I described above, Hanchett described how food can be the starting point for breaking down barriers. “What we’re looking at is different, and I think we are wired as mammals to be uncomfortable with difference but if you

Tsige Meshasha pours coffee at Nile Grocery.

Meena Chamlagai, co-owner of Rohan Grocery. study ecology, difference is what makes ecology work,” Hanchett said. “If you have bees and the flowers in different parts of the land, they all die. You need to have that multiplicity. We know from ecology that differences are the engine that drives a healthy environment, and food is a really colorful way to understand that.” About 10 years ago, Izzat Freitekh was running a sandwich shop called Abu el Ezz Sandwiches in his hometown of Old City, Jerusalem in Israel. His son, who was attending UNC Charlotte, eventually convinced him to come join him stateside. Freitekh said he has been welcomed into the Charlotte community with open arms, and doesn’t regret a thing. “We left Jerusalem and Palestine to secure our home and our family,” Freitekh told me. “I like this here. We feel more secure here.”

Once we finished our meal at La Shish Kabob, we headed to the Syrianowned Golden Bakery for baklava and other delicious pastries. That’s where our world tour stopped, but if we’d had the time (or the room in our stomachs) to continue, still within walking distance were the Egyptian-owned Al Basha Mediterranean Grill & Hookah; Halal International, a Turkish market and deli; Lucky Oriental Market; and the Peruvian Mily and Lalo Restaurant. Before we left La Shish Kabob, Hanchett described how his own discovery of international food changed his life, and how if those neighbors around this world-tour-ina-strip-mall could embrace it, it might change theirs too. “I was raised not to intrude on other people’s culture. I was raised not to eat weird stuff,” Hanchett said. “But I walk in and very seldom do I find something I don’t like. There are new flavors, which I love, and I’ve grown to really enjoy the unexpected. But I can do that because I feel really safe with Izzat. I mean, Izzat is not going to feed me something that is bad for me. Izzat is not going to feed me something that is not well-prepared. Izzat is not going to feed me something I don’t like. I cannot say the same for Chipotle. They’re run by a corporate office in L.A. or wherever.” He motioned to the Saudi delegation next to us as they enjoyed their meal and were deep into conversation. “Izzat is here watching, listening, bringing his culture to folks, the visiting dignitaries from Saudi Arabia. Just look at that; that’s the State Department, and he wants me to feel as comfortable as they do. And so that’s the root of it.” That’s insight you can take to go. RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 11

Snuggle Up with CL

tonight....

12 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 13

THURSDAY

IBRAM X. KENDI What: It’s been over a year since the Levine Museum opened the K(NO)W Justice K(NO)W Peace exhibit, documenting the Charlotte Uprising of September 2016 and more, and the museum continues to lead that discussion today. Ibram X. Kendi, author of the National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning, will describe how his research strikes down the idea of a post-racial America and why that idea is harmful in today’s political environment. When: 5:30-8 p.m. Where: Levine Museum of the New South, 200 E. 7th St. More: $8-15. museumofthenewsouth.org

14 | MAY. 3- MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

THURSDAY

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Global Bubble Parade SUNDAY

PHOTO BY ELDADCARIN

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

GRAFFITI WORKSHOP

CAROLINA REBELLION

DUB SHOW

TACOS, CHELAS & ROCK

What: Graffiti ain’t just for trains, walls and bathroom stalls (although we love it in all those places). For this meeting of the Bechtler Young Visionaries, local artist Deneer Davis will describe her process and guide the group through creating their own custom-made wearable art. Bring your own white sneakers, bag, shirt or whatever you think could benefit from a splattering of paint. Registration costs cover the rest of the materials, along with Davis’ instruction, beer, wine and light snacks.

What: Lovers of ‘90s hard rock will be in heaven for a full weekend when Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots (minus the dead guys), along with Incubus, Godsmack, Sevendust, Andrew W.K., Hatebreed — and some recent names, too — bring the old familiar guitar riffage of yesteryear to Concord’s greasy pits again for three days of metal mayhem. It’s not anywhere near our cup of tea, but if that sounds like fun to you, have at it.

What: Luxury cars, muscle cars, lowriders, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, exotics ... this is the custom car show for motorheads interested in the finer side of the whip game. And cars won’t be the only eye candy, as fans will have the chance to meet calendar models before enjoying performances from the likes of Yo Gotti and YBN Nahmir. We’re looking forward to Charlotte artists Raheeme and Deniro Farrar, who will let the crowd know “Where I Come From.”

What: If you must celebrate the U.S.-born Mexican-themed Cinco de Mayo, best to do it with an event sponsored by the Latinx community and not some corporate alcoholic beverage company. This one, sponsored by Latino Alternativo (and OK, yes, also Corona and Casa Noble Tequila — what did you expect?), features food trucks and music from local Latinx acts Chócala, Jahlistic, Mofun Go, Dorian Gris and Alexx Mattey.

When: May 4, 11 a.m.-May 6, 11 p.m. Where: Charlotte Motor Speeday, 7301 Bruton Smith Blvd., Concord More: $109 and up. carolinarebellion.com

When: 4-9 p.m. Where: The Park Expo & Conference Center, 800 Briar Creek Road More: $15-75. dubshowtour.com

When: 5 p.m. Where: Midwood International Cultural Center, 1817 Central Ave. More: Free. carlotantalents.com

When: 6-9 p.m. Where: Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, 420 S. Tryon St. More: $40. bechtler.org

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

Graffiti Workshop THURSDAY

Yo Gotti at Dub Show SATURDAY

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BECHTLER

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE COME UP SHOW

SATURDAY

MOVIES IN THE PARK: ‘COCO’ What: “Who wants to drive all the way to Belmont to see a children’s movie?” one CL staffer scoffed. Anyone who, like the abuelitos of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca — many of whom had never been to a movie theater in their lives — would like to be moved by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina’s sensitive, Pixaranimated story of Miguel, a niño who longs to be a musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz, based on Mexican ranchera legend Vicente Fernández. Under the stars. When: 8:15 p.m. Where: Stowe Park, 24 S. Main St., Belmont. More: Free. cityofbelmont.org

Ibram X. Kendi THURSDAY

SUNDAY

MONDAY

GLOBAL BUBBLE PARADE

THE PERCEPTIONISTS: MR. LIF & AKROBATIK

What: In a world of political vitriol, mass shootings and climate change, sometimes you just want to forget about the bullshit and blow bubbles. That’s what Sundays are for ... or at least this Sunday at Freedom Park, where folks will meet at the TreesCharlotte monument then walk the full loop of the duck pond blowing soap bubbles in order “to spread positivity and promote inclusiveness,” according to organizers. When: 12:45-3 p.m. Where: Freedom Park, 1900 East Blvd. More: Free. tinyurl.com/BlowBubblesCLT

PHOTO COURTESY OF IBRAM X. KENDI

WEDNESDAY

TUESDAY

WAREHOUSE TALKS

What: In 2005, this Boston hip-hop trio (now down to just the duo of Mr. Lif and Akrobatik) signed with Def Jux, the label and music collective of pre-Run the Jewels’ El-P. But the Perceptionists never followed up their dizzying debut Black Dialogue — until now. After life-threatening incidents in the years since their last collab, Lif and Akrobatik are back with Resolution, wherein they take on dirty politics, big Pharma and our powerlessness over life’s curve balls.

What: The first step for any addict is to admit there’s a problem, and it looks like Charlotte has finally faced the fact that it has an economic inequality addiction. With the Q.C. ranking dead last out of America’s 50 largest cities in the area of economic mobility, this panel turns to the arts for solutions. Panel members, including dupp&swats’ Davita Galloway and Children’s Theatre’s Michelle Hoppe Long look at the arts as a way to bridge segregation, increase social capital and enhance education.

When: 8 p.m. Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: $10. snugrock.com

When: 6:30 p.m. Where: Warehouse 242, 2307 Wilkinson Blvd. More: Free. warehouse242.org

Check CLCLT.com on May 3 for episode 41 of our podcast, Local

Vibes, as we get spaced out with The Wormholes discussing this

DAVID BYRNE What: David Byrne has always been cool by being deeply uncool. The last time he was in Charlotte he didn’t even play a show. Instead, he led a bike ride around town to encourage people to vote. Now he’s back to do what he does best, which is confound expectations while glancing back at his past without an ounce of reverence. His American Utopia, which dropped in March, is quintessential Byrne, a mass of funky and endearingly dorky contradictions, and an optimistic take on existential dread. When: 7:30 p.m. Where: Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd. More: $50 and up. ovensauditorium.com

check out Local Vibes now on spotify!

month’s album release and Snug Harbor residency. Also, check out our new squad at queencitypodcastnetwork.com.

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 15

FEATURE

MUSIC

WORMHOLES EXPAND The Charlotte spacerock trio propagandizes for love BY MARK KEMP

HE WORMHOLES ARE

on a mission, and it’s not just to make majestic, electronicsinfused rock. They also have a message they’d like to get out to the world. “The message is very important to us,” guitarist and singer Ben Verner says. He’s sitting at Trade and Lore in NoDa, in a NASA T-shirt emblazoned with a spaceman illustrated like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man. Next to him is Wormholes’ drummer and singer Chris Walters. They’re sipping coffee and talking about the group’s latest album, Cosmic Propaganda, and the Wormholes’ May residency at Snug Harbor, which begins the 2nd and continues each Wednesday through the 30th “We try to convey our message in more than just the music or the lyrics,” Verner continues. “It’s in the overall presentation.” The band’s vision involves graphic art, backdrops, lighting and mood-setting for the music on the new album, which is a big leap from its 2016 set What Do You Know? That was a much more conventional collection of atmospheric indie rock, with vocals mixed way up on tracks like “Future Becomes Past,” and most of the songs built around the standard guitar-bass-drums configuration. “What Do You Know? was recorded right when the change in our sound really started,” Verner says. “Chris was still kind of new to the band, and we were in a weird place where we didn’t want to play the old stuff; we wanted to write new stuff, but there were still a couple of songs that were transitional.” On Cosmic Propaganda, the Wormholes have jumped whole-hog into space music, with swells of keyboards and twinkling electronics giving tracks like “Whistleblower,” the spooky “Cold Fish” and the spare first single, “The Antidote,” a wide-open feel. In the latter song Verner sings, “This world can fake you into believing that what you’re perceiving proves a point. / This world can break you down by deceiving you, always thieving you of love.” Love is an important part of the band’s message, Walters says. “The name Cosmic Propaganda is more than just the album title,” he explains. “It’s kind of a mantra. We’ve self-proclaimed ourselves ambassadors of cosmic propaganda.” What that means, he says, is that the band wants to upend the whole idea of what propaganda is. “Especially in the context 16 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

The Wormholes spew cosmic propaganda live: from left, bassist Chris Dameron (on guitar), guitarist Ben Verner (on synth), and drummer Chris Walters (on drums).

“EVERYONE WANTS TO SELL YOU AN IDEA, AND WE WANT TO SELL YOU AN IDEA, TOO . . . LOVE AND KINDNESS.” WORMHOLES DRUMMER CHRIS WALTERS of where we are today in modern politics and media — everybody seems to have an agenda to push, people construct narratives, and propaganda is used everywhere. But it’s perceived as this negative thing. So we just kind of turn it on its head to where we’re aware of all of that, we’re aware that everyone wants to sell you an idea, and we want to sell you an idea, too. But the beauty of it is that the idea we want to sell you is a message of love and kindness. Our consciousness is bigger than we are; it’s bigger than our egos.” The centerpiece of Cosmic Propaganda, both musically and message-wise, is the song “Propaganda,” in which a soulless narrator similar to the computerized voice in Radiohead’s “Fitter, Happier,” recites lines from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: “The principles underlying propaganda are extremely simple,” the pitch-shifted voice intones over sounds reminiscent of composer György Ligeti’s hazy “Lux Aeterna,” the music played in 2001: A Space Odyssey as Dr. Heywood Floyd shuttles across the moon to examine a strange monolith. “Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety,” the voice continues. “Think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass

from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true.”

THE PRODUCT the Wormholes are selling

was conceived back when Verner and bassist Chris Dameron started jamming together as students at Western Carolina University in the mountain town of Cullowhee. The two eventually transferred to UNC-Charlotte and officially formed the Wormholes along with drummer Andy Allen in 2011. Fellow WCU student Walters arrived later, and began videotaping some of the band’s shows as it morphed from a conventional pop-rock sound into something more sprawling. “A couple of years into it, we added synthesizer to the music,” Verner says, “and that’s when Chris joined and we started integrating electronic drums.” After Walters replaced Allen, the band began writing songs with more of an electronic feel, but there was a period of transition when the guitar still ruled the sound. That’s what you hear on What Do You Know?, a good, but uneven set of music. The songs on Cosmic Propaganda, by contrast, all hold together, forming a singular, cohesive vision. “The stuff we do with guitar and the stuff we do with synthesizers has kind of become

this amoeba, as opposed to what you heard on that first album,” Walters says. “On that album, we have songs that were more electronic along with songs that were more guitar-driven, and the disparity is very clear. That’s all meshing together on the new album; we’re integrating those sounds a lot more now.” In addition to Walters’ use of electronic drums, bassist Dameron has begun to play his bass lines on a Moog synthesizer. “He no longer plays bass on an actual bass guitar, because we wanted that heavier texture that we couldn’t really achieve on a bass guitar.” The first glimpse the Wormholes offered of this new configuration was in a video for a song they recorded last year, “Stardust.” The band set up amid a barren landscape of rocks and stumps atop Crowders Mountain, with a battery-powered guitar, MicroKorg synthesizer, a Korg Volca Beats rhythm machine and tiny amplification devices. The sound — spare, stark and beautiful against a faded blue sky — portended the overall vibe of what would come on Cosmic Propaganda. “We still play songs from the earlier album live,” Verner says, “but they’ve evolved; we recorded the earlier album the old way but now we play those songs the new way.”

DURING THE MONTH of May, the band will be performing material “the new way” at

Walters (from left), Verner and Dameron. their Snug Harbor residency, bringing along fellow acts each week that complement the Wormholes’ eclectic tastes. On Wednesday, May 2, the band will focus on its harder-edged material — like the instrumental “Devil Music,” the one solidly guitar-driven song on Cosmic Propaganga — on a bill with local rockers Modern Primitives and the Business People. A week later, on May 9, the vibe will be more chill when the Wormholes’ guests include the reggae band Lovely Budz, as well as Swim In the Wild. On May 16, the Wormholes will officially release Cosmic Propaganda and bring along a pair of out-of-town acts, Indighost and Rare Creatures, as well as the Charlotte duo The Lady Comes First. On May 23, the trio will go all-out electronic on a bill with the terrific local ambient-dance duo Astrea Corp., and on May 30, the Wormholes will perform an all-covers set ranging from songs by Radiohead and Tame Impala to the Red Hot Chili Peppers — done from their own singular musical perspective. “It was really important to us to tastefully curate each night individually, because just being an audience member, I don’t want to go see the same thing every night,” Walters says. “The other important thing is that we all have pretty varied tastes and we wanted each night of the residency to reflect that. We play with a

PHOTOS BY ALEX WOLFE AND KAT BARNES.

THE WORMHOLES’ MAY RESIDENCY 8 p.m. May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30. Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. $5. snugrock.com

lot of different kinds of bands and we enjoy a lot of different types of music, so we thought this residency would be a cool way to kind of make each night individual for us and for the people who come out to the shows.” It’s all in keeping with the Wormholes’ ideas about propaganda. “This band strongly feels that we, collectively, can elevate each other,” Walters continues. “We genuinely care for each other as humans, we care for each other as conscious beings, we care for our planet — and if everybody could just embrace all of that and take the ego out of it, it just feels like life would be a lot easier.” He pauses, then adds, “This is not a political idea. It’s an existential idea. Our lives depend on it.” MKEMP@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 17

MUSIC

I MISS THE OLD KANYE

MUSICNEWS

8 p.m. May 5. Studio 1212, 1212 E. 10th St. $14.72-$28.45. tinyurl.com/ KanyeCLT

MAKE AMERICA YE AGAIN Charlotte prepares for ‘I Miss The Old Kanye’ BY MARK KEMP

WE’VE ALL SEEN the #IMissTheOldKanye

memes that have floated around on social media the past few years. On Saturday, May 5, Charlotte will be getting the “I Miss The Old Kanye” live event. Believe it or not, the idea for “I Miss The Old Kanye,” which takes place at Studio 1212 on East 10th Street, predates the rapper’s flurry of tweets on April 25. But the timing of the show — featuring a variety of local acts including rappers Raheeme and Nige Hood, singer-songwriter and electronic artist Deion Reverie, R&B singers Will Wildfire and Cyanca, among others — couldn’t be more perfect. Unless you live far away from any kind of media, your news feed has been inundated with the mercurial Mr. West’s recent pledges of love to his mercurial “brother,” the reality star (and, oh yeah, president) Donald Trump. “You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him,” Ye

Raheeme

PHOTO COURTESY OF BNR PROMOTIONS.

tweeted, before posting an image of himself wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap. Lamont Leak, the Los Angeles-based promoter of the “I Miss The Old Kanye” live music series, launched the events way back in 2016 in Los Angeles — just after Ye cancelled dates on his Saint Pablo tour and checked into a hospital. Even then, the timing of Leak’s event was completely accidental, the promoter said by phone from L.A. the day after West began his most recent Twitter rant.

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“The week we did the first ‘I Miss The Old Kanye’ event was the week after he had the breakdown, and after that happened, people started posting ‘I Miss The Old Kanye’” on social media, Leak said. “We already had our promotion and were getting ready for the show, so we was like, ‘Oh, man, this ain’t no joke — we really do miss the old Kanye!’” The event took on a life of its own, traveling to other cities including Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. — and now Charlotte. Leak, who works as a casting producer for The Voice and other music-based TV shows, formed TheLivePlaylist.com to produce immersive music and art experiences, and hooked up with the Charlotte-based music platform Disctopia, which helps him find local talent in specific cities. “We were looking for artists of all genres, and Will Wildfire was one of the artists I was looking at,” Leak said. “So Disctopia, which is a minority-owned platform in Charlotte, helped us. That’s the reason why we’re bringing this to Charlotte, because that’s Disctopia’s headquarters and they’ve been really helpful to us. They’re the reason we’ve been able to do this in other cities all across the country.” The Kanye events, Leak said, initially came out of his love of Ye’s music. “I was just like, ‘Yo, I really miss the old Kanye,’ and at the time it was more the music that I missed — like 808s and Heartbreak and Late Registration and Graduation,” Leak said. “I missed that particular era of music from Kanye. So this was really just me creating what I wanted. I wasn’t looking to make money. I just love Kanye.” So do most of the Charlotte artists who signed on for the May 5 event here. “Kanye West has been an influence on me for a long time,” rapper Nige Hood said, “mainly because he was the breakout artist to transition hip-hop’s cool from gangster to intellectual and cultured.” West’s Wednesday twitter bombs haven’t changed Hood’s feelings about the rapper. “I personally do not feel affected by his recent actions,” Hood said, adding that he was more mystified by the public outrage. “The same public,” Hood said, “has had enough experience with the media, Donald Trump and Kanye West to know that going crazy about this particular episode might be a waste of our energy.”

Singer-songwriter Deion Reverie agreed. “We all know that there’s one thing Kanye is a master at, and that’s getting people talking about Kanye. He has two new albums dropping soon, and headlines all over the internet are talking about Ye. Genius.” The recent tweets certainly aren’t West’s first declarations of support for Trump, a president who has said all Haitian immigrants “have AIDS” and that Nigerians would never “go back to their huts”; called some of the Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists “fine people,” and still claims the Central Park Five — the wrongly convicted black teens later proved innocent of a 1989 rape in New York City — were guilty. West met with the future president at Trump Tower in 2016, just after the rapper told a California audience on his Pablo tour, “If I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted for Trump.” “He expressed his support for Trump pretty early into Trump’s presidency,” said Reverie. “I was a bit confused. I shrugged — and continued blasting Life Of Pablo.” Still, West’s post-Pablo behavior definitely isn’t like the “old Kanye,” who rapped in “Never Let Me Down,” from The College Dropout, “I get down for my grandfather who took my mama / Made her sit in that seat / Where white folks ain’t want us to eat. / At the tender age of six she was arrested for the sit-ins / And with that in my blood I was born to be different.” Maybe we just didn’t know what West meant by “different” in those lines. Maybe different meant being totally counterintuitive about social change. Maybe different, for Ye, today means screwing with perceptions of how the public “expects” black people to react in any given circumstance. Maybe. And then, maybe not. It’s hard to tell. Later on April 26, West was tweeting that he just wanted to spread love, not hate. And by the weekend, he was trolling us with a track in which he rapped gibberish over an obscure old soul song, “Liberty,” by the early’70s Earth, Wind & Fire-like group Amnesty. While it may be impossible ever to parse Ye’s words and antics in ways that fully explain his true feelings, by Friday he seemed to be backing away slightly from his Trumpism. “I haven’t done enough research on conservatives to call myself or be called one,” he tweeted. “I’m just refusing to be enslaved by monolithic thought.” As for the local artists appearing at the May 5 “I Miss the Old Kanye” event, at least one isn’t putting any energy at all into interpreting Ye’s behavior. Charlotte rapper Raheeme, who said he’s never been “a Kanye fanatic” anyway, is just glad to be performing at the show. As for Kanye, Raheeme said, “He lives his life, I live mine. He has his beliefs and moral foundation, I strive to do what’s right and genuinely give back love to this planet while I’m here. I’m doing this event to provide a great performance experience for Charlotte.” MKEMP@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 19

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD MAY 3 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Combo Spring Concert (Davidson College Tyler-Tallman Recital Hall, Davidson)

COUNTRY/FOLK Kitchen Dwellers (Neighborhood Theatre)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Matt B (Tin Roof) Le Bang (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Carmen Tate Solo Acoustic (Eddie’s on Lake Norman, Mooresville) Open Mic at Studio 13 (Studio 13, Cornelius) Open Mic with Lisa De Novo (Temple Mojo Growler Shop, Matthews) Blue October, Flagship (The Fillmore) Family And Friends (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Foxture, Waking April, Ellie Morgan (Petra’s) Joe Williams (Comet Grill) John Baumann, Zach Nytomt (Evening Muse) Karaoke (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Open Mic music with Willie Douglas (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) Shana Blake and Friends (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Will Shehan & Off the Wall (Tin Roof)

MAY 4 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony Pops: Disney’s Fantasia (Belk Theater) Jazzy Fridays (Freshwaters Restaurant)

COUNTRY/FOLK Courtney Lynn & Quinn (Primal Brewing) Coyote Joes 27th Birthday Bash: Granger Smith, Earl Dibbles Jr. (Coyote Joe’s) Dana Louise & Glorious Birds (Stage Door Theater) Folk Soul Revival (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Karen Waldrup (Evening Muse) The Lil Smokies, The Mallett Brothers Band (Neighborhood Theatre) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ RWonz (RiRa Irish Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B 20 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Electric Relaxation f. DJ Skillz (‘Stache House Bar & Lounge)

POP/ROCK Alchemystics (Thomas Street Tavern) Avery Deakins (Tin Roof) Carolina Rebellion: Alice In Chains, Shinedown, Stone Sour, Stone Temple Pilots, Bullet For My Valentine, Underoath, Parkway Drive, Pop Evil, Sevendust, Andrew W.K., Tremonti, Red Sun Rising, Avatar (Rock City Campgrounds at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord) Cosmic Charlie (Visulite Theatre) ISH (Jack Beagles) Jonathan Scales Fourchestra, Chuck Lichtenberger (Evening Muse) Leisure McCorkle, The Pinkerton Raid (Petra’s) Matt & Kim, Tokyo Police Club, Future Feats (The Fillmore) Nicolay, The Hot At Nights (Snug Harbor) Real Work, The Lovely Few, OCNS (Tin Roof) Starship Mantis (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Willie Douglas Band (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

MAY 5 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Cinco de Mayo: Alexx Mattey, Dorian Gris, Mofun Go, Chocala, Jahlictic (Midwood International & Cultural Center)

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony Pops: Disney’s Fantasia (Belk Theater) Jazzology (Comet Grill)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Off The Wall (Petra’s)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Leslie and Friends Trio (Promenade on Providence) Get on Up! A Musical Tribute to James Brown (Booth Playhouse)

POP/ROCK 9daytrip, The Dirty Soul Revival (The Rabbit Hole) Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Allen Stone, Zac Clark, Bob Oxblood (The Underground) Blue Monday (Tin Roof) Carbon Leaf, Scott Mulvahill (Neighborhood Theatre) Carolina Rebellion: Godsmack, Five Finger Death

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD

Eclectic Soul Tuesdays - RnB & Poetry (Apostrophe Lounge) Soul Station (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

COUNTRY/FOLK Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (The Fillmore) Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK

Punch, Breaking Benjamin, Halestorm, In This Moment, The Used, Trivium, Black Veil Brides, Asking Alexandria, Hatebreed, Butcher Babies, New Years Day (Rock City Campgrounds at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord) The Fustics (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Jon Stickley Trio (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Lisa DeNova, Late Night Special, Major Falcon and the Universe, Abbey Elmore Band (Visulite Theatre) MayFest: Matone, Shake the Band, Polecat VooDoo, Deep Shallow Band (Jack Beagles) MIcrowave, Sinai Vessel, Late Bloomer (Snug Harbor) Swift Technique (The Music Yard) TFDI (Evening Muse) Tin Roof Cinco De Mayo Fiesta: Blue Monday, New Local, Brightside, Late Night Special,

MAY 7 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Jam (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B #MFGD Open Mic (Apostrophe Lounge) Knocturnal (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Blanket Fort, Neat Sweep, Pink Pots, You’d Never (Milestone) Find Your Muse Open Mic with our friend Frank Lockavitch (Evening Muse) Them Sedgefield Boys (Comet Grill)

MAY 8 HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Alright, Heckdang, Gardeners, Jail Socks (Snug Harbor) Irata, Sierra, Greevace (Milestone) Matthew Logan Vasquez, T. Hardy Morris (Evening Muse) Uptown Unplugged with Spencer Rush (Tin Roof) Open Jam with the Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

MAY 9

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

POP/ROCK Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Pete International Airport (The Underground) Blue Water Highway, Virginia Man (Evening Muse) Buckethead (Neighborhood Theatre) David Byrne (Ovens Auditorium,) Scott Porter (Tin Roof) Wait And Shackle, Jistu, Uncle Buck (Milestone)

Jordan Middleton (Tin Roof)

MAY 6 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL CBS Blues Sunday with The King Bees (The Rabbit Hole)

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Brian Culbertson (McGlohon Theater)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Bone Snugs-N-Harmony (Snug Harbor) Hazy Sunday (Petra’s) Mansionair, Mikky Ekko, NoMBe (The Underground) More Fyah - Grown & Sexy Vibes (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

POP/ROCK Carolina Rebellion: Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Incubus, Billy Idol, The Struts, Clutch, Thrice, Baroness, Greta Van Fleet, Quicksand, The Sword, Red Fang, Code Orange, The Bronx, Mutoid Man (Rock City Campgrounds at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord) Melvins, All Souls (Visulite Theatre) Metal Church Sunday Service (Milestone) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill) Peter Case, Paul Luc (Evening Muse) School of Rock Charlotte Showcase (Tin Roof) Yanni 25 Acropolis Anniversary Concert Tour (Belk Theater)

5/2 TAUK 5/4 COSMIC CHARLIE 5/6 (the) MELVINS 5/5 LISA DE NOVO & LATE NIGHT SPECIAL 5/11 SOUTHSIDE WATT 5/12 MAGIC GIANT 5/19 TheCLARKS 5/15 TANK AND THE BANGAS 5/18OF GOOD NATURE 5/22 LILLIE MAE 5/25 MATTHEW SWEET 6/9NIGHT RIOTS 5/31 Justin Townes Earle 6/16 Town Mountain 6/21AMERICAN AQUARIUM 7/19 ROOSEVELTS 7/20 JGBCB 7/21JUPITER COYOTE 7/23 FANTASTIC NEGRITO NEED DIRECTIONS? Check out our website at clclt.

com. CL online provides addresses, maps and directions from your location. Send us your concert listings: E-mail us at mkemp@clclt. com or fax it to 704-522-8088. We need the date, venue, band name and contact name and number. The deadline is each Wednesday, one week before publication. CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 21

ARTS

FEATURE

PIÈCE DE ‘RÉSISTANCE’ Activist art show strikes notes of defiance and hope BY PAT MORAN

HE PARADOX of the Donald Trump administration may be that its assault on civil liberties, immigrant rights and the environment has spurred an artistic renaissance, an outpouring of expression in opposition to White House policies. At least that’s what Megan Walsh has been seeing. “After the election a lot of people wanted to create art about how they were feeling,” Walsh says. The 29-year-old’s day job is program specialist for the Charlotte Arts & Science Council’s Culture Blocks program. In that capacity Walsh works to bring arts, science, history and cultural programming out to the city’s diverse communities, but she reaches yet another constituency — Charlotte’s Arts community — as organizer and facilitator of Resist: An Activist Art Show. Designed as a showcase for resilience and advocacy through the arts, the exhibit goes up Friday, May 4, at C3 Lab. “There will be a lot of original pieces — paintings, drawings, sculpture and mixed media,” Walsh promises. “We’ll also feature poetry and a dance piece.” She says turnout from the arts community has been overwhelming, and that submissions are still pouring in. All told, she predicts the show will include 45 pieces and performances. The OBRA Collective, of which Walsh is a founding member, is presenting Resist. The collective’s name is a play on words, Walsh explains. Obra in Spanish means “a work,” or “a piece,” as in a work or a piece of art, while the English language definition of OBRA is an acronym for “observe, bridge, respond, and art,” she says. The collective fosters and features work by immigrant and undocumented artists and their allies, art that illuminates the immigrant experience and highlights voices that frequently go unheard. When OBRA launched in 2013, Walsh was the youth development coordinator for the Latin American Coalition. “I was working with high-schoolers and teens when the Democratic National Convention came to town,” Walsh remembers. “A cool group of artists from across the country came through on what they called the UndocuBus.” Walsh’s young charges were fired up by the UndocuBus riders’ workshops, and after the convention they asked Walsh why Charlotte didn’t have something as cool as the programs offered by the visiting activists. Walsh’s reply was simple and direct. “I said we should start our own group that 22 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO COURTESY OF BETH D. MUSSAY

Beth D. Mussay’s “Portrait of Keith Lamont Scott”

Luis Ardila’s “Phaethon” will do stuff just as cool,” she says. So OBRA was born, and Walsh has been active in the collective ever since. The group has presented workshops, including a presentation on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and art shows, most recently Made in America, an exploration of the immigrant experience held on May 20 of last year. What makes Resist different from previous shows is its scope. For this exhibit OBRA has cast its net beyond just the Latin community and its allies. “The idea is to open the door to other artists — and not just people who are familiar to the collective,” Walsh says. Past shows have been dominated by wonderful Latino artists, she continues, but now OBRA is eager to see what kind of artwork other people will create under the banner of “Resistance.” So far, pieces focusing on the environment and immigration have been two of the more popular themes among the submissions. “The other big theme that has stood out this year is police brutality,” Walsh says. That’s the focus of Beth D. Mussay’s small portraits of several people who have been killed by the police. Subjects of the artist’s character studies include Keith Lamont Scott, killed by Charlotte police, and Aiyana Jones, the 7-year-old Detroit girl who was killed by police while sleeping on her grandmother’s couch, Mussay says. “These portraits are an attempt to remember these people with love and respect,” Mussay continues. “They are an attempt to value people who, because of racism, are clearly not being valued.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF LUIS ARDILA

Environmental concerns figure heavily in Noah Hartley’s “I Resist Litter, Deforestation, and Human Pollution,” a series depicting wildlife in their compromised habitats. “It’s important we realize if we can’t be the generation to solve the problem, we can at least be the generation that addresses the problem,” Hartley says. “My pieces speak to resisting apathy and disrespect for the beautiful creation around us.” Power politics and mythology collide in Luis Ardila’s “Phaethon.” The title character, the son of the Greek Sun god Helios, was granted control of the sun chariot, but he could not restrain the powerful eagles and horses that pulled the vehicle. With the earth in danger of being destroyed by Phaeton’s recklessness, Zeus was forced to strike down the chariot with a thunderbolt, which also killed Phaethon. It’s a lesson that great power should carry responsibility, Ardilla says. “Currently our society is on a wrong path that leads to an abyss of chaos, arrogance and greed,” Ardilla cautions. Mexican mythological figures in Zuleyma Castrejon’s acrylic painting “Neither the Eagle Nor the Serpent Respects Borders,” which depicts an eagle with a serpent in its mouth. “I wanted to speak against Trump’s wall [and] start a conversation about how borders divide us,” Castrejon explains. “Simultaneously, I wanted to celebrate the resilience of my Mexican people. Being Mexican is a state of soul, neither eagle nor serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects borders.”

Trump’s proposed border wall also informs Walsh’s “I Resist Borders,” a painting which depicts a javelina [a Mexican peccary] divided by a wall. “The wall has disrupted the natural ecosystem,” Walsh says. The border, she continues, has wreaked havoc with migration routes used by animals like the javelina. Resist will also feature sculptures such as “Disgusting” and “Such a Nasty Woman,” ceramic undergarments created by Doris Kapner to critique the current president’s misogyny and the sexism which has spawned the “Me Too” movement; and the song “Femenina Divina,” a celebration of feminine energy that will be performed by Kali Ferguson. Many of the artists will be present at the show’s May 4 opening to discuss their works. Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy’s Oliver Merino will also be on hand to discuss and disseminate information about 287(g), the controversial program that authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to deputize selected state and local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law. The program has had a devastating effect on the Latin community because it has ripped families apart, Walsh says, and fostered widespread distrust of the police among the public. With its mix of art, political activism and useful information, Resist seems to be on track to be a clarion call for action among the Latin community, the arts community, and beyond. “I hope that people will be exposed to different ways of resistance, and that people will feel that there are so many different causes that they can work for,” Walsh says. She also hopes that people will become interested in joining the OBRA Collective.

PHOTO BY ZULEYMA CASTREJON SALINAS

Zuleyma Castrejon Salinas’ “Neither the Eagle Nor the Serpent Respects Borders” PHOTO COURTESY OF NOAH HARTLEY

Noah Hartley’s “I Resist Litter, Deforestation, and Human Pollution Pt. 2” “We’re always looking for new people to lead workshops for us,” she continues. “It will be cool to meet artists and other people who are passionate - because people wouldn’t have submitted [to this show] unless they felt strongly about the issues.”

‘RESIST: AN ACTIVIST ART SHOW’ Friday, May 4 at 6 p.m. C3 Lab, 2525 Distribution St. The show runs through May. obracollective.wordpress.com

#ShapingCLT: A Healthy City

Saturday May 12th, 2018 12-2pm at Camp North End

Tickets $10 May's installment of the #ShapingCLT series will focus on Charlotte becoming a healthy city. Food, games, and activities will move the conversation along. Attendees will leave the program with simple, actionable steps to make Charlotte a healthier place to live.

Account Sales Representative Womack Publishing, is seeking a creative Account Sales Representative for several newspapers in North Carolina to promote and market the business community through our products in print and online. A college degree is preferred but not required. A good work ethic, positive attitude and willingness to be part of a team will be an important consideration in selecting a candidate for this position. If you enjoy meeting people, this may be the perfect opportunity for you. Womack Publishing offers a competitive salary and a full benefit program. Womack Publishing is a family owned, growing multimedia company that publishes 19 regional newspapers. Please send your resume to: Ron Cox, Human Resource Manager, P.O. Box 111, 30 N. Main Street, Chatham VA or to rcox@womackpublishing.com CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 23

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CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 25

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When we got to the top of the stairs while I was looking for the table we were going to That’s right. Yours truly. The big 2-8. My goodness, what a lackluster age to turn. This be seated at, I heard all of this commotion time last year, I didn’t know it but I was coming from the center of the room. taking part in a series of events that would I glanced to see who was causing all the almost lead to my demise. ruckus and that’s when I realized it was my No joke, last summer was one of those CP family and friends! They’d organized this summers where you look back and it makes entire situation and I was absolutely clueless. sense why Britney Spears cut off her hair in But I digress. All that was to give you a 2007. So this year, I was just excited about little insight into Dandelion Market. If you putting the past year behind me. haven’t heard by now, this venue is more When my friends started asking me weeks than just a bed of drunken madness at 1 in advance, “What do you want to do?” I felt a.m., it’s also a highly popular destination the shrug and roll of my eyes in my response because I was genuinely uninterested in the for brunch, lunch and dinner seven days a idea of being disappointed two years in a week. row. I’d only been there a couple times for But my lackadaisical attitude wasn’t food, however, I’d had a decent experience going to keep April 25 from coming. eating the food. The next thing I knew, every This time, all 15 or so people single day of the week was a in attendance settled on one night I couldn’t remember thing - Everything at the with people I couldn’t Market for $295 (dine in forget. only). It started on Tuesday at The Corner Pub (of What madness is that course). When the clock you ask? Oh, just every struck midnight, my boo single thing on the menu thang, my friends and my for less than $300. CP family sang me “Happy I’m not going to lie, Birthday” while my “cake” AERIN SPRUILL even though I cosigned the was sat in front of me. decision, I was nervous. What And by cake, I mean a if I didn’t get to taste everything I chicken tender smothered in hot wanted? What if I was still hungry after sauce with a single lit candle and a side the fact? of ranch! (I’ve never been a huge fan of cake.) Both reasonable questions to ask, And after dinner at my fave restaurant – Bahn Thai in Ballantyne – on my actual wouldn’t you think? birthday the next night, I couldn’t ask for a Nope, not even relevant questions at all. better surprise. The special comes in three waves of food. By That’s when those same people I was the second, I was full beyond words. By the with on Tuesday (plus some) pulled the end of it, everyone had that look when you ultimate okiedoke. eat too much and you know you could fall Even though I was exhausted after what asleep at the drop of a dime. felt like a week-long birthday celebration, I Not to mention, there was so much left agreed to go on a double date with my friend we could’ve fed three to five more people! and her boyfriend at Dandelion Market. My favorite items: sweet potato gnocchi, I was exhausted, and all I could think fried brie salad, sweet and spicy green beans, about on our way to dinner was how excited I was to enjoy a glass of wine and great wine sausage stuffed poblano pepper and the pork before heading home to go straight to sleep. belly. But it’s just never that simple in my world. However, maybe the only reason those The boyfriend and I parked in the parking were my faves is because I was too full deck next door to Dandelion Market (which, to appreciate everything else? I know one by the way, is not validated at the popular thing, Everything at the Market is perfect restaurant). for parties 15 or more (and birthdays). When we walked in, I noticed my If you haven’t been to Dandelion Market friend and her boyfriend sitting at the bar yet, plan a trip before the market menu item waiting on us – of course we were late. After goes up. They’re open seven days a week. what I would later describe as an awkward BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM encounter, we walked upstairs to be seated.

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FIRST OF THE FIFTH ACROSS

1 Reprimand sharply 7 Linguine, e.g. 12 Fed. accident investigator 16 Obstinate beast 19 Get creative 20 “I do” locale 21 In -- (as first found) 22 A few Z’s 23 Big name in economics 26 Cincinnati-Detroit dir. 27 British pop singer Rita 28 Hideous sort 29 Suffix with prefer 30 Smidgen 31 “-- My Heart” (Toni Braxton hit) 35 Date system of ancient Yucatan natives 39 Igloo dweller 41 French “sea” 42 Candy wafer brand 43 “I’m appalled to report that ...” 49 Drifted about 52 Film director Nora 53 Cariou of the stage 54 Mill fodder 56 Public radio host Glass 57 Of Laos, e.g. 58 Podded plant 59 Inner beings 61 Land -- (sleep state) 63 Gloater’s syllable 64 Aioli 67 With 46-Down, genuine article 69 Prefix with refundable 70 Big brand of faucets 71 Hot dog in a classic jingle 78 Part of LSAT 82 Ruckus 83 Sleuths’ jobs 84 Abbr. for the Blue Jays 85 Disorder 86 Tourist’s aid 87 Asks for 89 -- -jongg 90 Brandy’s sitcom role 91 Downhill trail 93 Supreme Court appointee of 2009 97 Continental coins 99 French “here” 100 “Look -- did!” 101 Best Actor of 2014

106 Inaction 110 12:00 p.m. 111 Injure badly 112 Sprint, e.g. 114 B&B, e.g. 115 Certain 4x4 116 Mansion House resident 122 Apply 123 “That hurt!” 124 Author Dahl 125 Skin and hair care brand 126 At all times, poetically 127 Tennis star Arthur 128 Full of foam 129 5/1 festival that’s apt for this puzzle’s eight longest answers

DOWN

1 Jewel 2 Bejewel, e.g. 3 Post-injury program 4 Mo. neighbor 5 24-hr. cash cache 6 Chai, e.g. 7 Hunger sign 8 Make panic 9 Enter like the sun’s rays 10 Tiny little bit 11 Genesis boat 12 “Bye Bye Bye” band 13 Soup holder 14 Winner of six Super Bowls 15 Double-decker, e.g. 16 What “A.D.” stands for 17 Gifted world traveler? 18 Javelin 24 Li’l Abner’s surname 25 Nighttime, poetically 30 Old Peru native 32 Three cheers? 33 NBAer Brand 34 Long time period 36 “Certainly” 37 Elbow site 38 Zone between biomes 40 Actress Liv 43 Cruel 44 “-- -daisy!” 45 -- Pet (novelty gift) 46 See 67-Across 47 Spanish “water” 48 Once every 12 mos. 50 Greek Cupid

51 Miami- -- County 55 Chemical relative 58 King’s home 59 Garbage boats 60 1980s Dodge 62 Strike at something but not hit it 64 Shapely leg, informally 65 Regarding 66 Neither here -- there 68 Effacement 71 Resistor units 72 Drench 73 Saved with the same filename, say 74 Tibetan oxen 75 Canadian gas name 76 Guesses at LAX 77 Not at all, in dialect 79 Effortless 80 Artsy NYC area 81 Old Russian bigwig 85 Title for a French nobleman 88 Immense 89 Major artery 90 Grumble 92 Botch up 94 Vardalos of Hollywood 95 Frigid 96 Larcenist 98 Look (for) 101 Happen next 102 Immerse 103 “Which way -- go?” 104 “Delicious!” 105 Noble Brits 107 Supported temporarily, with “over” 108 Get -- good thing 109 Peeve 113 Surname of Buffalo Bill 116 Mauna -117 Ovid’s “-- Amatoria” 118 “Says --!” 119 Flee hastily 120 In vitro cells 121 Waterloo marshal Michel

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SOLUTION FOUND ON P. 30.

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QUICKIES Pussy riots, celibacy, shaved pubes and more BY DAN SAVAGE Married from 28 to 36, single the last three years, and celibate most of the last couple years. The last two years of my marriage were sexless, and I saw professionals until I was priced out. I could probably earn twice what I’m making now if I moved away, but my current job gives me the flexibility to spend afternoons with my young kids. Last year, I had a brief relationship (that included the best sex of my life), but I ended it because I needed more me time. So I lack the willingness or the confidence to be in a relationship, and I don’t have the cash to see pros. I’m not fussed by this. Should I be concerned about my celibacy? ABSOLUTELY NOT GETTING SEX TODAY

Seeing as your celibacy is intermittent and by your own choice (you walked away from the best sex of your life for me time? What kind of mid-’90s Oprah bullshit is that?), ANGST, you’re unlikely to wind up hanging out on an “incel” forum filled with angry, violent, socially maladapted men who blame the fact that they can’t get laid on women and feminism. So long as you continue to take personal responsibility for all the sex you’re not having, there’s nothing to be concerned about. My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. When we first got together, we had sex every day. Then it dwindled. We had major problems along the way and separated this winter. During that time, he went to another state. We got back together longdistance, and I received many letters from him saying how much he wanted to have sex with me. He moved back two weeks ago, and we’ve had sex only twice. He used to say he wanted me to make

the first move. But if he really wanted me, wouldn’t he make a move? I feel so neglected, yet he claims he loves me. Please give me some insight.

respectful relationship I’ve ever been in. BOND AFFLICTED BY YEARS

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Speak, BABY: “Look, you want kids. I’m not ready, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. Also, I’m not sure about lifelong monogamy. If we need to part ways so you can find someone who wants the same things you do and wants them now, I’ll be devastated but I’ll understand.”

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I’m a 22-year-old woman living in Central Asia doing development work. There are 14 other expats within an hour or two of me, but eight of them are in relationships. I’ve always been the “single friend,” and I’m a youngish man normally I don’t mind. who’s been in a loving But being surrounded relationship with an by couples right now older woman for a year. has been a tax on my The only area where the mental health. I know age difference comes I’m young and should into play is largely be focusing on this unspoken between us — amazing opportunity DAN SAVAGE she wants kids. All of her and my career, but I friends are having kids, and can’t help but feel lonely she’s nearing the end of her at times, especially since I childbearing years. I’m nowhere can’t speak the local language near ready, and I sometimes question well and these 14 other people are the whether I want to be monogamous only ones near me who speak English. to any one person for life. We never What should I do? SINGLE ANONYMOUS DAME discuss it, but I can tell how deeply this bothers her and that in her ideal world, Math. Eight of the 14 nearby EnglishI’d be ready to start planning a future speaking expats are in relationships. That with her. I’m racked with guilt at the means six nearby expats are single like you, possibility that by the time I’m ready SAD. It’s not a lot of people to choose from for that level of commitment (or, worse, in real numbers, I realize, but as a percentage by the time I realize I never will be), — 40 percent of nearby expats are single she’ll be biologically incapable of having — it’s statistically significant, as the social kids, which is really important to her. scientists say. Focus on this opportunity, This is all complicated by the fact that focus on your career, and focus on that this is easily the most loving, trusting,

On the Lovecast, a sociological study of male escorting: savagelovecast.com; follow @ fakedansavage on Twitter; mail@savagelove. net; go to ITMFA.org.

NO SEX FOR WEEKS

He says he wants sex (with you), but he doesn’t make a move. You say you want sex (with him), but you don’t make a move. So how about this: The next few times you want sex, NSFW, make a move. If he fucks you two out of three times, maybe he was telling you the truth when he said he’d like you to make the first move. If he rebuffs you every time, then he doesn’t want to have sex with you — and you’ll have to make a move to end this relationship.

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LIBRA ARIES

(March 21 to April 19) Taking advice isn’t always easy for self-assured Rams and Ewes who think they know what’s best. But it wouldn’t hurt to listen to what close colleagues have to say.

TAURUS (April 20

SOLUTION TO THIS WEEK'S PUZZLE

to May 20) You know how to balance life’s practical aspects with the poetic. This gives you a special edge this week in both your professional endeavors and your personal life.

(September 23 to October 22) Your decision to be upfront with colleagues on a touchy matter causes some consternation at first. But in the end, your honesty wins their trust and admiration.

SCORPIO (October 23 to

November 21) As in the past, someone again wants to share a secret with you, knowing it will be safe. But do you really want to be this person’s confidante? Think about it.

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GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Focus on keeping a balance between your homerelated activities and your workplace responsibilities. Be mindful of both without obsessing over one or the other. CANCER (June 21 to July

22) A change in plans is likely as you discover more facts about a possible commitment. Continue to ask questions and, if you’re not sure about the answers, demand proof.

LEO (July 23 to August 22)

Be careful not to let that Leonine pride keep you from seeking wise, experienced counsel before making an important decision. A family member once again seeks your help.

VIRGO (August 23 to

September 22) That surge of Virgo energy drives you to take on more work assignments. Be careful you don’t overdo it, or you might find yourself overdone: i.e., burned out.

(November 22 to December 21) As one of nature’s straight shooters, you seek to correct misconceptions about a project. Do so, of course, but without giving away too much too soon.

CAPRICORN

(December 22 to January 19) Creative pursuits continue to be strong in the gifted Goat’s aspect. New friendships can come from sharing these experiences with likeminded art aficionados.

AQUARIUS

(January 20 to February 18) Resolve lingering grumblings over your way of doing things by keeping your mind open to suggestions while continuing to show how your plans will work.

PISCES

(February 19 to March 20) The perceptive Piscean might find that changing course in midstream isn’t as workable as it would seem. Explore this option carefully before making a decision.

BORN THIS WEEK Your willingness to share your love of life’s good things brings joy to many, including, of course, yourself. 30 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

S.I.N

AMATEUR

SUNDAY CONTEST CLCLT.COM | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | 31

32 | MAY. 3 - MAY. 9, 2018 | CLCLT.COM