2018 Issue 12 Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | MAY 10 - 16, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 12

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Tania Kelly steps out of her comfort zone in ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ at Duke Energy Theater, opening on May 17. Check out page 23 for our story.

We put out weekly 8

NEWS&CULTURE A LIGHTHOUSE IN THE STORM Rwenshaun Miller confronted his own mental illness to become a beacon for the black community

BY RYAN PITKIN 7 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 11 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN

12

FOOD&DRINK HAMBURGER HELPER How grass-fed beef can make America’s favorite meal less environmentally toxic

BY ARI LEVAUX

14

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

MUSIC

16

SHARING IS CARING Cat Glenn brings her experience, strength and hope to the dark country and bluegrass she plays in Dead Cat

BY MARK KEMP 18 MUSIC MAKER: PATRICK HILL, DISCTOPIA BY PAT MORAN 20 SOUNDBOARD

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT A ‘BRILLIANT’ TRANSITION Charlotte’s ace comic takes on a

touchy-feely challenge

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

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

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NEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

SAVING BEAUTIFUL MINDS It’s time we stop randomly and erroneously calling people “crazy” “What’s different about our community MENTAL HEALTH ain’t no joke. So why, is not only aren’t we warm to dealing with in 2018, do we still often treat it either as [mental health challenges], when it comes time a joke or as something to sweep under the to provide your love and support, someone like carpet?

We call the president crazy when he fires myself [a doctor] is not the first person we off tweets that make us cringe. We call Kanye would call,” Jasper says. “We’re going to call West crazy when he goes off script onstage, our bishop, our minister, our family friends, interrupts honorees at awards ceremonies we’re not going to call a professional, because there’s a huge mistrust of institutions and or serial-tweets his support of the president.

We use the word “crazy” entirely too often systems in our community, which has a level to describe people about whom we know little of validity to it, considering how things have to nothing. In fact, most of us know little to progressed for minorities in this country.”

Compounding the problem of seeking help nothing about the terror and isolation people who suffer mental health challenges — from in the first place is the number of African bipolar disorder to addiction — undergo on Americans who could use it. According to Pitkin’s story, the Health and Human Services a daily basis.

What if someone were to look at every Office of Minority Health reports that blacks are 20 percent more likely to experience person with a gaunt face and no hair serious mental health problems than and dismiss them by saying, “Oh, the overall population, due to a they’re just a cancer patient.” variety of factors. And yet only We all would be appalled. about 25 percent of blacks And yet that’s what we’re who suffer from mental doing when we say, “Oh, health challenges will seek so-and-so is just crazy.” medical care, compared to In this week’s cover 40 percent of whites. story, news editor Ryan Meeting with Jasper, Pitkin checks in with Miller says, “definitely a thoughtful, hardchanged the game for me.” hitting, well-reported Today, Miller reaches out story on issues facing MARK KEMP to African Americans suffering people with mental health from mental challenges through challeneges. But not just any his nonprofit organization, Eustress, people — Pitkin talks with a Inc. Last month, the American Psychiatric Charlotte man who has dedicated his life to reaching out specifically to African Association Foundation honored Miller with its Award for Advancing Minority Mental Americans with mental health challenges.

That’s a whole other obstacle that few have Health for “undertaking special efforts to been willing to tackle. Our nation’s historic increase public awareness of and secure medical maltreatment of African Americans quality and comprehensive mental health has left a deep scar, the result of which is a care for underserved minorities.”

All this is personal for me, and it may general distrust of the system. For instance, when Rwenshaun Miller, the founder of a be personal for you, too. I have good friends Charlotte nonprofit that works with clients living with mental health challenges who struggling with mental health challenges, was have told me they’ve been in exactly the faced with hospitalization for his own mental same place Rwenshaun Miller was in when he sat in that hospital bed with a white doctor health issues, his first thought was to run.

“I had a white man telling me that I was delivering his diagnosis. And those friends diagnosed with bipolar disorder and the only had the same reaction — the desire to run, thing that I’m thinking is, ‘Yo, what do I need to hide, to get away, to deny. The stigma to do to get out of here? I don’t care what else of confronting and embracing one’s mental you’ve got to say, just what else do I need to health challenges can be overwhelming for do to get out of here?’” Miller tells Pitkin in “A African Americans in our society — and we don’t make it any easier when we scoff at Lighthouse in the Storm,” on page 8.

It was only when Miller met with Dr. celebrities whose public behavior may or may Kendell Jasper, an African-American not be due to a mental health challenge.

For my friends and your friends or family psychologist, that his anxieties were eased.

Jasper tells Pitkin that anyone facing mental members, read Pitkin’s story this week, and health challenges is initially fearful of medical let’s rethink our collective attitudes toward treatment and the stigma they’ll receive from mental health challenges. Too many people their comunities. But for African Americans are suffering for us to have the luxury and with mental health challenges, those fears tone deafness to randomly and erroneously are exponentially worse — so much so that it call people “crazy.”

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM often keeps them from seeking medical help.

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 7

NEWS

FEATURE

A LIGHTHOUSE IN THE STORM Rwenshaun Miller confronted his own mental illness to become a beacon for the black community

BY RYAN PITKIN

T

HERE CAME A time in 2013 when Rwenshaun Miller was convinced that his only option was to take his life.

Miller had spent the last three and a half years silently battling with bipolar disorder — self-medicating by going through a fifth of tequila every other day as he heard disembodied voices speaking to him on a regular basis.

Miller had been familiar with the three distinct voices in his head for years, although he didn’t recognize them as belonging to anyone he knew. The voices eventually began telling him he’d be better off dead. That’s when he took matters into his own hands.

He purposefully overdosed on prescription pills twice but survived.

The third time, Miller decided he wouldn’t leave survival to chance. In his north Charlotte townhome, he took the Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun he kept under the driver’s seat of his car and put it to his head. When he pulled the trigger, the gun jammed.

In the following moments, Miller was overcome with a feeling of failure.

“All I could do was just sit there and cry, because I done failed three times at trying to take some type of control over my life,” he says.

Five years later, Miller is the founder and executive director of Eustress Inc., a Charlotte nonprofit organization that works with clients who are struggling with mental illness, focusing on youth, athletes and the black community. On May 5, the American Psychiatric Association Foundation honored Miller with the APAF Award for Advancing Minority Mental Health.

On May 19, Eustress will host its third annual Mental Health Awareness Walk at Reedy Creek Park, followed by the inaugural Let’s Talk About It Mental Health Awareness Gala at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.

By the end of the year, Miller hopes to increase local accessibility to mental health care for youth and minorities by opening Eustress’ first mental health triage facility in Charlotte, a place designed to help those struggling with mental illness regardless of income or insurance status.

Looking back on that fateful day in 2013, Miller won’t shame his past self for the actions he took. “You have your lowest of your lows, especially when you’re in the 8 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY JON STRAYHORN

Rwenshaun Miller (center, in green hat), addresses a crowd at the second annual Eustress Mental Health Awareness Walk, held in 2017. depression phase of bipolar disorder, and you want to take some type of control. A lot of times people look at suicide as, ‘Oh, it’s selfish,’ or ‘You’re weak,’ or ‘That’s an easy way out.’ I don’t see anything easy about trying to kill yourself,” Miller says.

“I had so many thoughts going through my head, it wasn’t just about me. I wanted control, yes, but then I also wanted to stop hurting. And in addition to that, I wanted my family to stop worrying about me. If I’m no longer here anymore, they don’t have to worry about me anymore,” Miller says. “All these things going through my head, it wasn’t just about me. That was far from the case.”

Still, Miller quickly realized his gun jamming was a chance for him to truly take control in a way he knew to be effective.

“That’s what actually led me to this,” Miller says, as he sits outside a Panera Bread at Northlake Mall between meetings with clients. “That’s when I knew: ‘Rwenshaun, you need to make a change.’”

MILLER’S BATTLE BEGAN in August

2006, when he injured his knee as a sophomore at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. A defensive back on the football team and a star of track and field, he was sidelined.

He withdrew from his social circles, losing interest in everything that once enthused him. He stopped eating and eventually stopped sleeping, which he believes led to his “psychotic phase.” In December, his family checked him into the Williams Inpatient Psychiatric Unit at Duke University Hospital.

“Me hearing voices, essentially that’s what led me to the hospital, because my family picked up on it,” Miller says. “I didn’t actually actively seek help, it was forced upon me.”

According to the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general

population. This can be due to a number of different factors, including the higher likelihood that black people will experience issues that put people at risk for mental illness, such as homelessness or exposure to violence.

Despite that startling statistic, only about 25 percent of the African American population will ever seek mental health care, compared to 40 percent of white people, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Distrust in the health care system, a lack of cultural competence by health professionals and socio-economic factors all play a role in that inequity, according to NAMI. While hospitalized, Miller felt distrust in a system in which no one looked like him.

“I had a white man telling me that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and the only thing that I’m thinking is, ‘Yo, what do I need to do to get out of here? I don’t care what else you’ve got to say, just what else do I need to do to get out of here?’” he says.

He was eventually discharged from the hospital before filing for a medical withdrawal from school and moving to Charlotte to live with his uncle. It was here that he met Dr. Kendell Jasper, his uncle’s old fraternity brother who had since become a licensed clinical psychologist. Meeting Jasper changed everything for Miller.

“He definitely changed the game for me when it comes down to seeking therapy because he was a black man and he was cool, real cool,” Miller says. “He made it OK for me to open up to him.”

Jasper helped Miller find a medication regiment that worked for him, and things started to improve. But within a matter of months, Miller’s life would begin to unravel.

BRANDY HAMILTON LOVES to sing gospel songs. On a recent Thursday afternoon, she’s standing in the lawn of the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in her bare feet leading

a group of eight clergy members and former inmates of Mecklenburg County jails as they sing “We Shall Overcome.”

Hamilton is here as a former inmate to speak against the use of solitary confinement in county jails. She tells the story of her arrest in 2016 when Hamilton says she was placed in solitary confinement for singing gospel songs during a mental health crisis.

She was between medications for bipolar disorder at the time of her arrest, she says, and barely remembers the incident, save for the confused reaction of members of the Direct Action Response Team when they rushed into her cell only to find a woman singing a song.

Hamilton, now 30, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after attempting suicide on December 27, 2010. When we meet outside the courthouse in early May of this year, she still hasn’t decided whether she believes the diagnosis, which she says came after just a 10-minute meeting with two doctors.

Hamilton has tried multiple medications since her diagnosis, but none have worked.

Following her suicide attempt in 2010, she was put on meds that made her too tired to function. After repeatedly falling asleep in class and then once while driving, she filed for a medical withdrawal from UNC Charlotte.

In 2016, she was hospitalized after an episode she believes was brought on by her prescription to Prozac, which she was later told should not be used to treat bipolar disorder.

Her experiences have left Hamilton distrustful of the health care system. She says her uncle, a pharmacist in Greensboro, has told her it may take some time to find the right mix of meds, but Hamilton is concerned about the cost and length of such efforts.

“I don’t have time to be a guinea pig while you’re practicing medicine. I still have to teach, to work, you know? I have to pay rent.

So it’s very hard,” Hamilton says before going into other reasons she believes black people

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have a hard time seeking treatment.

“In the black community, we’re really churchy ... a lot of us grow up as Christian,” Hamilton says. “We believe, ‘Oh, pray to Jesus. Pray it away. We think that’s something you can do about it. And [health care practitioners] have done experiments with us in the past. So either we think we’re going to pray it away, or there’s a mistrust there, or we ain’t got time to be a guinea pig.”

Hamilton says that in 2016, she met with a black female psychologist who explained to her the spectrum of bipolar diagnoses, and that some cases are more serious than others. It was something no one had taken the time to go over with her in the past, and went against what she heard from other doctors, who made her feel as if she’d be on suicide watch for the rest of her life.

Although she remains skeptical of the diagnosis, meeting that psychologist was comforting to her.

“I could accept it better, and I had a better understanding,” Hamilton says.

“Maybe mine just isn’t as bad as what they were describing before.”

When I ask Dr. Jasper if the lack of African-American representation among doctors affects the numbers of black patients reaching out for help, he immediately agrees.

He points out that, in his 42 years of life and 14 years of clinical psychology practice, he’s only ever met two black male clinical psychologists, not including himself.

“I think there’s improvement and we are seeing some improvement, but it’s not improving enough to address the number of individuals in our community that are experiencing mental health issues.”

Often times, he says, when black people do finally reach out, they won’t reach out to professionals in the field.

“The reality is that [mental illness] happens in everyone’s community. People aren’t really warm to you talking about what your issues are and then addressing them,” Jasper says.

“What’s different about our community is not only aren’t we warm to dealing with it, when it comes time to provide your love and support, someone like myself is not the first person we would call. We’re going to call our bishop, our minister, our family friends, we’re not going to call a professional, because there’s a huge mistrust of institutions and systems in our community, which has a level of validity to it considering how things have progressed for minorities in this country.”

AFTER ABOUT SIX months of taking his

medications and working with Dr. Jasper,

PHOTO COURTESY OF EUSTRESS

“YOU HAVE YOUR LOWEST OF YOUR LOWS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU’RE IN THE DEPRESSION PHASE OF BIPOLAR DISORDER, AND YOU WANT TO TAKE SOME TYPE OF CONTROL.” RWENSHAUN MILLER, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EUSTRESS INC. Miller was feeling better. He enrolled in UNC Charlotte and soon thereafter stopped taking the meds altogether.

“It was just straight-up ignorance. When you start to feel better you try to treat it like a physical ailment,” Miller says. “I felt better.

I was like, ‘OK, well this made me better so I’m good now, I’m back to normal Shaun.’

And also with that, no one knew what was going on with me, so I could keep this in a silo, no one has to know, and I can get back to being regular Shaun.”

Dr. Jasper, who played basketball at UNC Charlotte in the ’90s, can relate to the attitudes of young athletes and why they often make mistakes similar to Miller’s when going through treatment for a mental illness. “[Athletes] are treated a little different, which lends itself to the idea that you have to overcome injury in order to get back on the playing surface,” Jasper says “And if you view your mental illness as an injury, then your goal is to get back as quickly as you can or, in some instances, not express how hurt you really are.”

Miller soon learned he was not better, as the voices returned. Over the next three and a half years, he continued to struggle in silence while self-medicating with tequila.

The problems culminated in 2013 with PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN his third suicide attempt and the Smith & Wesson that wouldn’t fire.

Following that incident, Miller linked Brandy Hamilton speaks at a press conference up with Dr. Jasper again. He returned to against solitary confinement at the taking his meds, doing counseling work and Mecklenburg County courthouse on May 3. focusing on self-care. In 2014, he launched a diagnosing an individual, you have to blog called Monumental Monomental, which consider the entire person. That comes he would later change to Eustress. The blog down to their culture, their environment, focused on the physical health aspects that their family history, all of these types of go hand in hand with mental health. things. And it’s hard to provide a diagnosis As the blog’s popularity grew, he began to someone just off of one sitting with them. getting feedback from folks who said they But these are the things that are taught.” never discussed their mental health with Miller also knows that half the struggle anyone. Two of Miller’s friends reached out is in helping people in the black community to him via the blog, not knowing he was the feel comfortable enough to reach out. That’s anonymous author. They had never spoken to why he spends much of his time in schools him about mental health in person, nor had and churches doing workshops as a way to they known of his struggle. reach young people at risk.

It was during this time that Miller “It’s OK to not be OK, and it’s OK to talk began to realize that this was his calling. He about certain things,” Miller says. “When I was acquired a master’s degree in mental health raised, we lived by this creed: What happens counseling, and in the summer of 2015, he in this house, stays in this house. You don’t turned his blog into a 501(c)3 nonprofit. share certain things. You never wanted to be During Miller’s studies, he started to perceived as weak, especially as a man. Men recognize some “holes” in what was being don’t show emotions. Men don’t cry. We’ve taught about mental health at a national level. got to dispel those myths and understand that “A lot of research and stuff that is done men are people, too. We experience certain in the mental health realm, it’s not done things and holding on to those things, it’s a on my people,” Miller says. “And there are ticking time bomb, honestly.” layers to that, as well. It’s because we won’t But it’s not just men living in that unsure participate, but then you also don’t have state. When I catch up with Hamilton a few people that really care to go into depth into days after meeting her at the courthouse, she the minority population when it comes down tells me she’s been living out of her car since to addressing these issues.” late April. I immediately recall what she told According to NAMI, there are differences me about her anxieties regarding medication in symptoms between white and black patients and being uninsured when I met her, before who may be suffering from a mental illness I knew of her living situation.

— symptoms that a culturally incompetent “My family really wants me to take these health care provider might miss. pills, but like, who is going to pay the rent For example, African Americans, especially while I’m getting regulated?” she asked me women, are more likely to experience and at the courthouse. “Because if I feel like a mention physical symptoms related to mental zombie, like in 2010 when I had to drop out of health problems. Black men are more likely UNC Charlotte ... that was to my detriment.” to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia after Hamilton’s plight is a reminder that for bringing up symptoms of what might actually many in Charlotte, the arrival of Miller’s be post-traumatic stress disorder. triage can’t come soon enough.

A lack of cultural understanding in mental health care became a focus for Miller.

Stay tuned to Creative Loafing for Part 2 of “When I started noticing these holes, this story next week.

I was like, ‘Well, how can we really serve RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM a population if you don’t know about the population?’” he says. “When you’re CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 9

10 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

KRAMER A 70-year-old man filed a police report last week after going through a rude awakening thanks to his tobacco fiend of a neighbor. The man told police he was sleeping in his bed at his north Charlotte home when his neighbor woke him up at around 4:30 a.m. and asked him if he could borrow money to go buy cigarettes. The problem was, his neighbor did not have permission to be in his home.

The tired victim told him — probably in no uncertain terms — to get out of his home then went back to sleep, but when he awoke at 8 a.m., he was still peeved enough about the incident to file a non-criminal report with police.

TAKE A KNEE When you get cut off in traffic and want to express your problems to the person who did the cutting, it’s probably best that you just stick to the middle finger.

One man wanted to discuss traffic etiquette with a woman who cut him off in north Charlotte last week but ended up with a bum knee instead. The man told police he got out of his car on North Tryon Street near NoDa Brewing to talk to a woman who had just cut him off, and when she saw him approaching her car she hit the gas and struck him in the knee, then drove around his car and took off down a side street. It’s unclear whether the woman was caught, but the report states that she faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon. My analysis: with all the stories of road rage attacks you hear these days, I’m not entirely sure she did the wrong thing here.

OPRAH WINFREY There comes a time

when you’re working at your retail job and you’ve seen so many people walk away without the things they really want that you just can’t take it anymore, so you start giving shit away. What’s that? That’s not normal? Well, those were the actions of one employee at a Sam’s Mart convenience store last week, as management reported that the suspect was “caught on video giving away merchandise to customers and not charging them for the items.” In total, the suspect gave away just $16 worth of goods, but he was still turned into police and charged with larceny by employee.

HOT COMMODITIES There are far too

many hungry people in this city to leave a hot dog cart unattended for too long, and one man learned that the hard way at Latta Park in Dilworth recently. The man told police he was selling hot dogs at the park when he decided he would need to go to a nearby Target to re-up on supplies. He left his wife in charge of watching over the cart, but she eventually had to go to the bathroom and left the cart unattended for 30 minutes. At some point between noon and 12:30, a thief took advantage of the free dogs, and made off with the whole cart, worth $4,000.

SEE YOU LATER A 51-year-old man called

police to report one of his acquaintances that pulled off one of the dumber hit-andruns I’ve come across in my time writing The Blotter. The victim told police that the suspect struck his vehicle in the Washington Heights neighborhood in west Charlotte at about 3:40 p.m. one afternoon in the middle of a downpour, according to the report. The victim recognized the driver at fault in the fender bender, and the two even chatted briefly from inside their respective cars. The victim told police he “assumed the driver was going to pull over and exchange information,” but instead, the suspect suddenly sped away, despite the fact that he knew the victim and could ID him. He probably needed some time to sober up before confronting the $500 in damage he just did to his friend’s car.

DIY A 24-year-old employee at Carmen Carmen Salon in the Cotswold area called police last week after someone stole something from her work area, and it wasn’t just a stapler. The woman reported that someone took a $600 pair of left-handed shears from an unlocked drawer near her chair. Assuming it wasn’t one of her coworkers, as she would probably recognize them while in use, our guess is that it was a customer who decided they could do a better jobwith a DIY cut in the mirror.

GIMME THE CHEESE Police responded to

a theft call at Chuck E. Cheese on PinevilleMatthews Road, because the victims clearly can’t come to them. Staff told police that the suspect stole $20 from a tip jar that was meant for “a cast member,” and maybe it’s been a while since I’ve been in a Chuck E. Cheese, but am I wrong for assuming that means the money was meant for one of those animatronic musicians?

DO THEY FIRE? Staff at Wolfman Pizza on

Park Road in south Charlotte called police last week after someone tried to pass an obvious counterfeit bill and thought they’d get a pizza for it. Officers reported that the fake $20 bill had the word “REPLICA” written in all caps clearly in the corner, so the suspects were only able to order waters.

WHO GETS WHAT A 28-year-old man

filed a police report last week after someone broke into his south Charlotte home and made off with some important documents that the suspect must not have any use for. The man told police that the thief made off with $2,000 worth of jewelry, his passport and his living will.

Look on the bright side, you don’t have any jewelry for your family to fight over anymore, anyway.

All stories are pulled from police reports at CMPD headquarters.

Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

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FEATURE

FOOD

HAMBURGER HELPER How grass-fed beef can make America’s favorite meal less environmentally toxic

BY ARI LEVAUX

T

HE HAMBURGER IS one of

America’s favorite dishes and famous culinary exports. This simple meal illustrates sophisticated gastronomic principles, and thanks to its culinary stature, as well as some other unique attributes, the hamburger is also in a position to teach us something else: how to shrink the carbon footprint of our meals.

Beef is increasingly regarded as the most environmentally destructive form of human protein, thanks to the greenhouse gases released by cattle and the production of their food. But some grazing advocates have argued that properly managed cattle can be carbon-neutral, and the newly released results of a five-year study — a collaboration between the University of Michigan and the Union of Concerned Scientists — support that notion. Only about 1 percent of American beef is currently grass-fed, and it remains an open question whether beef eaters will stomach this change.

They would have to agree to eat grassfed beef, which is often leaner and tougher than its feedlot-finished counterpart. And they would also have to accept eating less, because healthy grazing practices would only produce about half the beef per acre, compared to current practices. The price, meanwhile, would likely rise.

As I will explain in a moment, hamburger nullifies these concerns, as well as the one nobody is talking about — that Americans need to accept buying their meat frozen, not fresh.

The idea that fresh meat is somehow superior to meat that’s spent months in the freezer is a notion as deeply rooted as it is unsupported. Unless that attitude changes, grass-fed beef will never be more than a niche product.

Here’s why. Feedlot beef can be supplied year-round, on demand. Whenever meat is required to fulfill an order, fat cows are shipped to slaughter, and meat is available, even in the dead of winter. But a grass-fed beef supplier is at a serious disadvantage trying to compete. The rancher’s cattle are standing around eating hay all winter, while those feedlot cows are eating corn and soy.

The grass-fed animals weigh less than they did the previous summer, because hay is not as nutritious as green grass. Thanks to their fat reserves from the previous summer, 12 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

grass-fed animals make it through the winter fine, but as those reserves are drained, the meat loses quality.

Grass-fed beef is of the highest quality when slaughtered in summer, at peak fattiness. That is when the producer has the most meat per animal to sell, and the consumer gets the richest meat.

Hamburger offers a solution to this and every other obstacle to grass-fed beef. Unlike more prestigious cuts, burger can be thawed very quickly. Just drop a frozen pack in a bowl of room temperature water. As a hunter, I do this regularly with my deer and elk burger, and it’s some of the finest eating there is, year round. So it’s perplexing to see Wendy’s making such a big deal of its “100% fresh never frozen” burger promise.

The only advantage of raw meat is the convenience. You can take it home and cook it. But in terms of quality or safety, raw meat might as well be called rotting meat, because this is what happens is soon as meat is no longer attached to a living animal. Unless it’s frozen or otherwise preserved.

When I walk by the raw meat counter at the supermarket, I give it a wide berth, glancing sideways and wondering “I wonder how long that has been sitting around?” Frozen meat, assuming it was properly packaged, can last more than a year unscathed by the ravages of time.

Beyond the frozen meat hurdle, hamburger addresses the fact that grass-fed beef tends to be a little on the tough side. The grinder is a great equalizer, making grass-fed as tender as feed finished, while allowing all parts of the animal to contribute to the meal.

America’s favorite meal can even be a showcase for the growing number of viable meat-free burgers, like the plant-based Impossible burger, and maybe someday bugburgers or lab-grown meat burgers.

Served on a bun with trimmings, the

burger succeeds and satisfies thanks to the sophisticated convergence of flavors that are presented to the mouth in just the right proportions. The meat itself tastes good, but the nibble of onion is necessary as well, as the munch of pickle, crunch of lettuce, and juicy gush of ripe tomato. The hamburger is a laboratory for exploring how different tastes can come together in your mouth to provide pleasure.

Alas, if there is a downside to the classic presentation of the hamburger, it’s that once the first bite is taken, the magnificent structure of the hamburger sandwich begins to break down. With each subsequent violation it appears less attractive to all but the one eating it. Meanwhile, it becomes more difficult to maintain the desired proportions of meat and trimmings in each bite. The good news is this most perfect of meals still leaves room for improvement.

I prefer to serve my burgers deconstructed.

That way I can arrange each bite properly, without struggle to remain control of an unstable sandwich. The bites can be delivered by spoon, fingertips, on a toasted sesame seed bun, or in lettuce leaves.

The burger meat itself, I mix with salt and garlic powder and a little bit of olive oil, before cooking. Chopped parsley or other herbs are a great addition to ground, grassfed meat as well.

When It’s time to eat, I begin with a bitesized piece meat, and use a dab of mayo to stick a piece of onion to it. Then I eat it, and while I’m chewing I’ll adjust the mouthful by taking nibbles of pickle, tomato, roasted green chile, and whatever else I think will help.

But that’s just me. There is room for all of us, and all of our differing styles, under the big burger tent.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

MOO

5 Great Burgers in the Charlotte Area If you’re looking to experience great burgers in Charlotte — environmental correctness be damned — this year’s Creative Loafing Moo & Brew Festival, held Saturday, April 28, featured some of the finest. The 2018 Moo & Brew Best Burger trophy went to Blacow, with runner-up Bang Bang. Here’s where you can get those two burger joints’ juicy patties, plus three other popular burger establishments from this year’s festival.

BLACOW

Where: 1646 Hwy 160, Ste. 106, Tega Cay, S.C. When: Mon-Sun, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

More: blacowburger.com

BANG BANG

Where: 2001 E. 7th St., Ste. D. When: Mon-Sun, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

More: bangbangburgersclt.com

LITTLE BIG BURGER

Where: 10012 Benfield Rd. When: Sun-Thur, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri-Sat, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

More: littlebigburger.com

TEN PARK LANES (BEST VEGGIE BURGER + BOWLING)

Where: 1700 Montford Dr. When: Mon, 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; Tues-Thur, 9 a.m.-midnight; Fri-Sat, 9 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sun, noon-10 p.m.

More: rollten.com

CANTINA 1511 (BEST BURGERS + MEXICAN FOOD)

Where: 4271-B Park Rd. When: Sun-Thurs, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri-Sat, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

More: cantina15eleven.com (For more great burger options, check out the “Participating Restaurants” under the “Breweries” tab at mooandbrewfest.com.)

Top: a bunch of Blacow burgers; Bottom: Bang Bang Burger (left) and Little Big Burger.

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 13

THURSDAY

THURSDAY

‘THE MERMAID HOUR’

HOUSINGFEST: MAVIS STAPLES, BUDDY GUY

10

What: “I am not of land or of sea, I am of heavens. The secret of our kind is that we’re not in between, we’re above.” Cruz, a genderqueer social worker, speaks these encouraging words to Vi, the tween transgender protagonist of David Valdes Greenwood’s play. As Vi navigates a tricky transition, her parents struggle to do what’s right for their child. With compassion and empathy, this world premiere production examines gender politics, family dynamics and understanding one another.

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Actor’s Theatre, 2132 Radcliffe Ave. More: $25 and up. atcharlotte.org

10

What: This year’s Housingfest has made giving back a real no-brainer.

It would be simply stupid to miss the opportunity to see one of the world’s greatest living soul singers, Mavis Staples, with one of the world’s greatest living blues guitarists, Buddy Guy — together at one show! — for a cause that affects all of us: homelessness. Help Urban Ministry and let Mavis “take you there” with her otherworldly gospel vocals that are second to none.

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd.

More: $52.50. ovensauditorium.com

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Tank and the Bangas TUESDAY PHOTO BY GUS BENNETT

FRIDAY

11

IT’S SNAKES

SATURDAY

12

DARK WATER RISING

What: If you havent yet been to a Friday Night at Camp North End, you need to get on that, and what better way to kick off the summer season than with an album release party from It’s Snakes?

The sophomore effort from CLT music legends Hope Nicholls and Aaron Pitkin is creatively named It’s Snakes II, and promises to rock just as hard as the first (take our word for it, we were there for the listening party). Also check out openers That Guy Smitty and the Mike Strauss Band.

What: The brawny-voiced Lumbee frontwoman of Dark Water Rising will kick off the Music Yard’s Spring Concert Series with empowering songs like “Brown Skin,” celebrating North Carolina’s Native culture in soulful, gospel-infused rock. Led by 2004 American Idol contestant Charly Lowry, who failed to wow mainstream pop audiences with her performance of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” but has since made up for it with much more important honors from the Native American Music Awards.

When: 5-9 p.m.

Where: Camp North End, 1824 Statesville Ave. More: Free. camp.nc

When: 6 p.m.

Where: The Music Yard, 2433 South Blvd.

More: Free. historicsouthend.com

Check CLCLT.com on May 10 for episode 42 of our podcast, Local Vibes, as we chat with Patrick Hill of Disctopia, a new Charlotte-based music platform (story on page 18). check out Local Vibes now on spotify!

14 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

SATURDAY

12

GUIDED BY VOICES What: Are Guided by Voices brilliant or merely celebrated?

Leader and songwriter Robert Pollard’s sporadic genius is not in doubt, but you have to trawl through an awful lot of sprawl in the band’s back catalog to find the melodic and fuzzy lo-fi gems.

Maybe that’s the point. Even though GBV were an indie-rock juggernaut in the 1990s, their albums still offer the thrill of a crate digger’s discovery — the delight in finding that perfect diamond-hard tune amid a pile of gravel.

When: 8:30 p.m.

Where: The Underground, 820 Hamilton St. More: $25. fillmorenc.com

Margo Price TUESDAY

Mavis Staples THURSDAY

‘The Mermaid Hour’ THURSDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

PHOTO BY ANGELINA CASTILLO

SATURDAY

12

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, loosely based on Mexican ranchera legend Vicente Fernández.

When: 8:15 p.m.

Where: Stowe Park, 24 S. Main St., Belmont.

More: Free. cityofbelmont.org

PHOTO COURTESY OF ACTORS THEATRE CHARLOTTE

SUNDAY

13

TUESDAY

15

‘AVA & GABRIEL’

TANK AND THE BANGAS

What: The Classic Black Cinema Series presents director Fleix De Rooy’s 1990 meditation on faith, race and bigotry. Set in the 1940s on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, this tale of star-crossed lovers focuses on a charismatic black painter, who arrives from Holland to paint a mural of the Virgin Mary in a local church. The white colonial hierarchy bristles, particularly when the painter picks a young, mixed-race, and soon-tobe-married teacher as his model.

What: “I wanna leave a piece of God in your backseat.” So intones poet-singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball at the beginning of a short documentary on the remarkable Tank and the Bangas. You likely first heard of Tank and her merry funksters after they took first place in last year’s Tiny Desk Concert contest, but they’ve been knocking ‘em dead in New Orleans since 2011. The show’s sold out, but if you really wanna go, you’ll figure out a way. You know what they say about, “Where there’s a will...”

When: 2 p.m.

Where: Harvey B. Gantt Center, 551 S. Tryon St..

More: $9. ganttcenter.org

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave. More: SOLD OUT. visulite.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAVIS STAPLES

TUESDAY

15

MARGO PRICE

WEDNESDAY

16

REEL OUT CHARLOTTE

What: Margo Price went from the trenches of her father’s Nashville farm to the trenches of the city’s underground country-music scene to this ironically named Nowhere Fast tour. Since breaking through to success in 2016 with the release of her instant-classic debut Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, she’s released a worthy follow-up, All American Made, and shared stages with artists ranging from Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris to Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson.

What: This five-day festival will spend a week celebrating a decade of LGBTQ film in Charlotte, and it’s kicking things off on Wednesday with a VIP reception featuring Brian Michael, the trans star of Oprah Winfrey Network’s Queen Sugar. To kick off the 10th annual festival, attendees will watch Family Commitments, a German comedy about a marriage involving a homophobic Arab father, a pseudo-Orthodox Jewish mother and an unexpected pregnancy.

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th More: $20-22. neighborhoodtheatre.com

When: 6 p.m.

Where: Camp North End, 1824 Statesville Ave. More: Reception free. Prices vary. reelout.org

We joined up with heavy hitters on The Charlotte Podcast, The Comedy Zone Podcast, Cheers Charlotte Radio and The Yelp Charlotte Podcast to show what CLT has to offer in the audio realm. Be sure to check out our new squad at queencitypodcastnetwork.com.

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 15

FEATURE

MUSIC

SHARING IS CARING Cat Glenn brings her experience, strength and hope to the dark country, folk and bluegrass she plays in Dead Cat

BY MARK KEMP

W

HEN CAT GLENN MOVED

from Charlotte to New York City to attend Fordham University, the plan was to study political science, philosophy and French, continue on to law school and become a human rights attorney.

Then her mother got sick and died, Glenn fell in with a group of anarchist punks and life took a major detour. After graduating from Fordham in 2010, she returned home, but instead of getting a straight job, Glenn began playing music on the streets, busking for money to help pay for her rent — and eventually, for the heroin and alcohol she’d become addicted to.

It was a tough life, but at the time, Glenn says, she preferred it to working within the system.

“Being an anarchist, I didn’t know how to marry my anarchist viewpoints with life in society,” Glenn says. “I didn’t see how I could stay true to my values of anti-capitalism and equality in society — even as a human rights attorney. So I was just kind of lost and trying to find my way.”

She eventually did find her way. Glenn got clean, studied to be a substance abuse counselor and began singing her experiences in scrappy country, folk and bluegrass songs.

Last year, Cat Glenn’s band Dead Cat released Dearly Departed, a 10-song album of brutally candid tunes with titles like “Doomed” and “Heartbreak Waltz.” On the surface, the strummed acoustic guitar, plucked banjo and fiddle on tracks like “Passed Life” come across as sunny and breezy, but the lyrics cut deep.

“I lost my friend to heroin. I lost him to that drug. / He was trying to fill his heart up with all that synthetic love,” Glenn sings in “Passed Life,” and then, “I lost my mom to cancer, I begged and I prayed, searching for an answer. / But before I knew, she was gone, too.” Then the kicker: “And wouldn’t you know it, they left me here alone?”

The front woman of Dead Cat is sitting at an outside table at Smelly Cat in NoDa, in a maroon top, black skirt and black cowboy boots. The blue highlights in Glenn’s hair complement the darker blue tattoos on her arms and legs — one reads “Wild Card” — as well as the turquoise and silver jewelry on her fingers. Now four years into recovery, Glenn initally had a rocky time staying off 16 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Dead Cat live: Glenn flanked by fiddler Geoff White (left) and the band’s former dobro player Desmond Landry (right).

“YOU HAVE PEOPLE WHO DREAM ABOUT BEING A SUCCESSFUL MUSICIAN, BUT THAT’S NEVER BEEN MY DREAM ... AT THE SAME TIME, IT’S SOMETHING I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT AND I’M DEDICATED TO.” CAT GLENN

drugs while playing in the band, but she was clean by the time Dead Cat recorded Dearly Departed.

On May 12, with a brand-new lineup and new music in the works, Dead Cat will be doing songs from that first album as well as a few new ones at Petra’s on a bill with the brass-fueled Florida folk group the 502’s and the Charlotte instrumental rock duo the Flame Tides.

GLENN HAD NO IDEA how to play music

“correctly” when she first began to sing her feelings over her fast strumming on a cheap Hohner acoustic guitar. She was still a college punk rocker when she picked it up one day after having an unwelcome dream about an ex-lover.

“I woke up pissed off, feeling that I was supposed to be over this asshole, but there I was was still dreaming about him,” she remembers. “So I wrote a song about it and then afterwards realized it made me feel better. I’d never done that before.”

She began to play a few open-mic gigs on Fordham’s campus in the Bronx, and at hip spots like Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn.

“I had terrible stage fright and really didn’t know what I was doing,” she says. “And I didn’t have any intention of doing anything more with it.” She laughs. “I have no idea what sparked my interest in eventually playing with four other people in a band.”

It started with busking on the streets of Charlotte. When Glenn returned home after graduating in 2010, she moved into

a little anarchist community on Kennon Street off Thomas Avenue in Plaza-Midwood, where many of the residents, like singersongwriter Bart Lattimore, front man of the punk-country band Mill Hill Revival, were musicians. “We had like 25 of our closest friends spread through about five houses, all on the same block,” she says. “All we did all day was play music, drink whiskey and 40s and smoke pot. And I loved it. I mean, I’d never known that was an option. I didn’t know people were living this way.”

One of the musicians she met was Taylor Trew, the current front man of the old-time and bluegrass band Hashbrown Belly Boys.

“He was a busker, so we became friends and I would accompany him on mandolin,” Glenn remembers. “I’d gotten a mandolin for Christmas and would busk with him, and that’s where everything changed for me. I started playing music every day as a way to get money. While everybody was partying, we would go out and busk for a few hours, get up enough money for a bottle of whiskey and a joint, and come home.”

Eventually, Glenn began traveling around to other cities, busking for money and sleeping wherever she found a spot, whether it was on someone’s couch or under a bridge.

“I just wasn’t ready to settle down and get a job, and so I would busk as a way of getting money to pay for gas or whatever.” She pauses and laughs. “I mean, some people might call it homelessness — I called it traveling.”

When she got tired of “traveling,” Glenn finally got a real job, working at Crisp salad

DEAD CAT W/ THE 502’S, FLAME TIDES 8 p.m. May 12. Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. $8. petrasbar.com

shop in Elizabeth, but life began to catch up with her. “I got a two-bedroom house on Parsons Street and things just spiraled out of control,” she remembers. “I was still partying and it just got the best of me — harder drugs came along, heroin was all around in those days.”

She checked into treatment and came out with her first concrete plan in years: She would study to become a substance abuse counselor.

Somewhere around that time, Glenn also connected with one of the Mill Hill Revival guys — dobro player Desmond Landry — and formed Dead Cat. By then, she’d traded her earlier love of punk for more traditional folk, country and bluegrass. Glenn’s mother had listened to country, but she liked the pop-country played on the radio, not earlier, edgier artists like the Carters, Hank Williams or Wanda Jackson. “I think the reason why so many punks wind up doing country is because outlaw country embodies the spirit of punk rock,” Glenn says. “Real country music is scrappy, it’s rebellious — the Merle Haggards, the Hank Williamses — so it makes sense that we would identify with that when we’re no longer running

Vintage Dead Cat: White (from left), Glenn and former bassist Matt Davis. around in the pit.”

It took some trial and error for Glenn to get fully aboard the recovery train, but by the time Dead Cat went into Old House Studio in Charlotte to record Dearly Departed with producer Chris Garges, she was doing well.

She put all of her feelings and experiences into the music, and the album is like a diary of her life up to that point. In addition to dealing with the aforementioned heroin deaths of friends and cancer death of her mother in “Passed Lives,” Glenn sings of the toll the bottle takes in “Doing Wrong,” the difficulty of staying clean and sober in “Doomed,” and of heartbreak in several other songs including the aptly named “Heartbreak Waltz.”

Glenn says her newer songs are more focused in terms of the detail she puts into her lyrics and the dynamics in her vocals and guitar playing. “One of my friends told me recently that my writing has grown a pair of balls, because I’ll name things now,” she says.

“I don’t write around these topics anymore — now, I’ll do things like use the words ‘noose’ when I’m writing about a suicide, or ‘needles’ when I’m writing about shooting drugs. I just use whatever specific detail tells the story.”

As for the music, on Dearly Departed she mostly strums her Martin HD-28, but now she’s beginning to learn how to do the kind of alternating and walking bass lines you hear in Johnny Cash songs, and her vocals have more dynamic range, she says. “I haven’t quite gotten into fingerpicking yet, but that’s next,” Glenn says, adding that she never took proper guitar or voice lessons. “I learned how to play on the streets, so when I started playing shows in clubs, I didn’t know how to strum my guitar correctly, I didn’t know how to sing into a mic — I didn’t know how to do any of that stuff. It was all just coming out of me raw — no censorship, no tact, no understanding of dynamics, none of that.”

She pauses and laughs. “I’ve had sound guys in clubs come up to me and tell me, ‘You’ve really got something. You just need to learn how to play your guitar.’”

It’s those rough edges that make Glenn’s songs so compelling, and with a little growth in her playing and singing, there’s no telling where she’ll go from here. “The way I write

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAT GLENN

these songs is, I’ll just start strumming something and free-styling on it, and an hour later I’ll have a song,” she says. “When anything happens and I really feel it, I have to pick up my guitar. It’s just something I have to do.”

ANOTHER THING SHE has to do is counsel people with the disease of addiction. Glenn says her music will never take precedence over her day job, which is just as much of a passion as her music. To Glenn, the two are equally important and work hand in hand.

She’s currently working on a master’s in international addiction studies — an online program that involves a partnership among three universities, King’s College London, the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

“It involves people from all over the world coming together and sharing our knowledge and experience of addiction in different countries,” Glenn says. “I wanted to break out of my narrow worldview of addiction and learn what’s the westernized vision of addiction vs. what it looks like in China.

Or what it looks like in Russia.” After that, she plans to get a second master’s in clinical counseling.”

The music, she says, plays a central role in Glenn’s own therapy as well as in her counseling, but it’s not her ultimate goal.

“You have people who dream about being a successful musician, and that’s cool, but that’s never been my dream,” Glenn says.

“This has always just been something that I’ve had to do personally. Me and my other band mates all have full-time jobs, so we don’t tour and we don’t have to put out EPKs for our new releases.

“But at the same time, it’s something I’m passionate about and I’m dedicated to, and it’s a very important part of my life,” she continues. “It’s therapeutic for me, and it’s translated into something that also can be therapeutic for other people when I play out live and share my music and my stories.”

As they say in 12-step recovery meetings, sharing is caring.

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 17

PHOTO COURTESY OF DISCTOPIA, LLC

MUSIC

PHOTO COURTESY OF DISCTOPIA, LLC

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMJA

MUSICMAKER

DISCTOPIA’S BRAVE NEW WORLD Charlotte-based digital music platform spotlights indie artists

BY PAT MORAN

Patrick Hill

WHEN LOS ANGELES promoter Lamont Leek brought his “I Miss The Old Kanye” live music series to Charlotte last Saturday, local hip-hop and R&B fans probably noticed that the bill featured Queen City artists like rappers Nige Hood and Raheeme, R&B singers Cyanca and Will Wildfire and others — but they may have missed the show’s other local connection. Charlotte-based music platform Disctopia partnered with Leek and helped him locate the cream of the Q.C.’s musical crop. So if you caught the show and enjoyed the performances, you have Disctopia’s founder Patrick Hill to thank.

Hill, who launched the platform at A3C Hip Hop Festival in Atlanta two years ago, says his relationship with Leek goes back to those early days. “Our site was new, “ Hill says, “and we wanted to do an introductory indie showcase.” So Disctopia partnered with Leek on a successful show in L.A. After the gig, Hill talked to the performers to get their input on what they’d like to see in a music platform.

“I always thought that most indie artists want to get paid, but that didn’t turn out to be the case,” Hill continues. “That’s the second thing that they wanted. The first thing they wanted was to be heard.”

Today, that’s one thing that cuts Disctopia loose from the pack of other music platforms. Hill and his four-person staff are committed to getting their performers in front of an audience. “Within a short time period we’ve gotten about 150 artists on the platform,” Hill says, “and a lot of them have already performed for us two or three times.”

Creative Loafing: What inspired you to launch Disctopia?

Patrick Hill: I graduated from Livingstone College in Salisbury in three years. Then I went to the University of North Carolina Charlotte and got a master’s in information technology. I started working at Bank of America — the common transition for IT guys. Then one of my friends came over to my house and said, “I’m ready to make this new album, and I need you to burn me some CDs.” I said, “Burn you some CDs? I can, but there’s a better way to get your music out.” I offered to make him a website, which would let people download the music from his site.

He said OK, but he still wanted me to burn the CDs, so we did both.

This was seven years ago. Streaming wasn’t as popular as it today, and people were still buying CDs. People had just got into iTunes and downloading. So that’s when it hit me like a lightning bolt. I realized we should just make a platform for everybody.

This was before aggregators like Tunecore and DistroKid. I tried to convince people that everyone was going to be downloading and streaming media files, but no one believed that would be the future. It was still a fairly new concept seven years ago. I just put the concept on the backburner, but more and more ideas kept coming up for it. So that’s where the original concept came from — my friend asked me to burn his CDs, which I thought was a complete waste of time.

We officially launched two years ago when we got the [Disctopia] website up and running.

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 18 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

One of Disctopia’s premier artists, Emja We didn’t launch our Android and iOS apps until springtime last year. I actually applied to push the app in November 2016, but Apple denied it and it took me five months to get approved. It took longer because we were allowing artists to get paid directly, and if you’re familiar with Apple’s policies, they take 30 percent of everything no matter what it is.

They don’t care who you are. They don’t care if you’re Netflix. If you sign up on their device, they’re taking 30 percent. So we had to figure out a way to counteract that. It took us a while to recode it.

What does your platform do for the artists who’ve signed up with you?

We try to be 100 percent dedicated to the artists. We don’t take any commissions. We pay them two pennies per stream, the highest out of any platform, and we allow them to upload any of the three files — FLAC, mp3 or WAV. There are millions of people on Spotify, while we have about 5,000 users, but all 5,000 of those people are engaged. They are looking for people like our artists. I can guarantee them that the millions on Spotify are still looking for Drake.

We charge [each artist] $9.99 a month, which covers our technology costs. That’s it.

They keep everything else. They can make a million dollars on the platform for just $9.99 a month. From a technology standpoint, the business model is set up like Dropbox. If you want a breakdown of the business model, just think of it as if eBay and Netflix had a baby. We’re the only platform that allows artists to buy and sell. We’re releasing video files later this summer. So if you want to do music and video you’re going to be charged $17 to $19. We haven’t really nailed that price down yet.

Do you help the artists understand how to get themselves heard?

We have a very aggressive plan for adding other artist’s features that they need, like copyright information. A lot of artists don’t even know that you can copyright your song for $25 on the trademark site.

We also have an archive of 50 to 60 articles that provide information for artists — just simple stuff like how to shoot a music video, how to get your Google analytics for artists, how to promote yourself, how to pick band names. It’s just a pure resource guide.

That’s one thing that we’re doing for the new app update — adding some more resources,

The Disctopia app because people don’t know what they don’t know. We’re really all about the artist. We started partnering with the Lamont Leeks of the world, because the biggest thing for indie artists now is they need to be seen.

The current environment for digital media, period, is crowded. There are billions of songs on iTunes and Spotify now. The only thing that will make you stand out is being on a stage. That’s the last frontier.

Labels don’t market artists like they used to, because artists can market themselves now.

There’s Twitter and Instagram, and artists can buy their own Facebook ads. You don’t really need to hire a studio to get a good quality-sounding track. You can do all of this stuff. The only thing a record label still does well is artist development. They teach artists stage presence, public relations and things like that. We’re getting into that space by providing artists with an environment to perform in.

What performance events do you have coming up?

Right now, we’re working on a festival for early spring here in Charlotte. We want to bring Charlotte a real and true indie festival, not something catering to just one genre. It would be a festival like you see in upstate New York or out west where they have three or four genres spread out over two and a half days. We’re also currently working on a summer tour — some small showcases between here, Charleston, Washington, D.C., and New York.

PMORAN@CLCLT.COM

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Canvas Tattoo & Art Gallery

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CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 19

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD MAY 10

The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL

DJ/ELECTRONIC

HousingFest: Concert to end Homelessness: Buddy Guy & Mavis Staples (Ovens Auditorium) Maluma (Bojangles Coliseum)

Borgore (World) DJ Raquest (RiRa Irish Pub)

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH

Player Made: An Ode To Southern Rap of All Eras (Snug Harbor)

JAI All-Star Youth Ensemble: Blues, Bebop and Beyond (Stage Door Theater)

COUNTRY/FOLK Arkansauce (U.S. National Whitewater Center)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Odesza: 2018 A Moment Apart Tour (Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre) Le Bang (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Carmen Tate Solo Acoustic (Eddie’s on Lake Norman, Mooresville) Open Mic at Studio 13 (Studio 13, Cornelius) Act 2 (RiRa Irish Pub, Charlotte) Adrian Niles (Comet Grill) Brendan James, The DuPont Brothers (Evening Muse) Ghost Town Remedy, Futurists, Bergenline, The Stayhomes, Communal Sex (Milestone) Karaoke (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Monthly Songwriter Showcase (Summit Coffee Co., Davidson) Open Mic for Musicians (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) Scott Porter (Tin Roof) Shana Blake and Friends (Smokey Joe’s Cafe,) Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers (PNC Music Pavilion) Vintage Pistol, Run Engine (The Rabbit Hole) Vinyl Alley (Jack Beagles)

MAY11 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony: Mozart’s Jupiter (Knight Theater) Lovell Bradford plays Herbie Hancock (Stage Door Theater) Jazzy Fridays (Freshwaters Restaurant)

COUNTRY/FOLK Beta Radio (Evening Muse) Kenny Chesney, Old Dominion (PNC Music Pavilion,) 20 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

POP/ROCK Rock the Ride Friday (Charlotte Trolley Powerhouse Museum) Below The Belt [secondary event] (Jack Beagles) Carolina Voices: The Big Sing Animated (McGlohon Theater) Funk Rush (Summit Coffee Co., Davidson) Hipshack (RiRa Irish Pub) Jangling Sparrows (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) MisTics 9, Poor Blue (Tommy’s Pub) The Nth Power (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Pluto for Planet (Tin Roof) Sarah Peacock, Adam Ezra Group (Evening Muse) Satyr, Warboys, King Thing, Joules, Van Huskins (Milestone) She Returns From War, Faline, Brian Robert (Petra’s) Southside Watt, Ryan Hart (Visulite Theatre) The Tyler Neal Band (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Vance Joy (Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre)

MAY 12 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Tas Cru (Evening Muse) UltimaNota, DJ Minuche (Snug Harbor)

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Charlotte Symphony: Mozart’s Jupiter (Knight Theater) Lovell Bradford plays Herbie Hancock (Stage Door Theater)

COUNTRY/FOLK Aaron Watson, Drew Parker (Coyote Joe’s) Dead Cat, The 502s, Flame Tides (Petra’s)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Digital Noir featuring Michael Price and DJ

SOUNDBOARD Spider (Milestone) DJ Raquest (RiRa Irish Pub) Tilted DJ Saturdays (Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery)

POP/ROCK Brother Hawk (Evening Muse) Carolina Voices: The Big Sing Animated (McGlohon Theater) Dark Water Rising, Hustle Souls (The Music Yard) Glow Co. (Tin Roof) Goodfoot Down (Summit Coffee Co., Davidson) Guided By Voices (The Underground) The Highway [secondary event] (Jack Beagles) Magic Giant, Young Rising Sons (Visulite Theatre) Michael Stefano (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Old Heavy Hands (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Scott Porter (Tin Roof) The Trainjumpers (Heist Brewery)

MAY 13 DJ/ELECTRONIC Bone Snugs-N-Harmony (Snug Harbor) More Fyah - Grown & Sexy Vibes (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Charlie Wilson & Friends – A Mother’s Day Celebration (Bojangles Coliseum)

POP/ROCK Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill) Scott Porter (Tin Roof) Shaw Davis & the Black Ties (Petra’s) Sunday Music Bingo (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Thompson Revival, Modern Primitives, South Side Punx & The Not Likelys (Milestone)

MAY 14 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 Find Your Muse Open Mic welcomes back Matt Hectorne (Evening Muse)

Music Bingo (Tin Roof) Music Trivia (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Open Mic with Lisa De Novo (Legion Brewing) Ryan Cabrera (Neighborhood Theatre) Self Aware Records presents Swell Friends, Futurists, IndigoJo (Petra’s)

MAY 15 HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Eclectic Soul Tuesdays - RnB & Poetry (Apostrophe Lounge) Tank and The Bangas, Sweet Crude (Visulite Theatre) Soul Station (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

COUNTRY/FOLK Margo Price, Erin Rae (Neighborhood Theatre) Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK The Brevet, Von Grey (Evening Muse) Dogs in the Fight, The Hooliganz, A.N.G.S.T, The Commonwealth (Milestone) Uptown Unplugged with John Sullivan (Tin Roof) Open Jam with the Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Open Mic hosted by Jarrid and Allen of Pursey Kerns (The Kilted Buffalo, Huntersville)

MAY 16 HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Post Malone, 21 Savage, SOB X RBE (PNC Music Pavilion) Free Hookah Wednesdays Ladies Night (Kabob House, Persian Cuisine)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Karaoke with DJ Alex Smith (Petra’s) Cyclops Bar: Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor)

Theatre) Dead Like Me 2018 Tour: Blaze Ya Dead Homie & Gorilla Voltage, Trilogy, Kyng Rash, Red Jesse (Milestone) The Hollows (Tin Roof) May Residency: The Wormholes, Indighost, Rare Creatures, The Lady Comes First (Snug Harbor) Open House & Karaoke (Sylvia Theatre, York) Open Mic (Jack Beagles) Songwriter Open Mic @ Petra’s (Petra’s)

COMING SOON St. Vincent (May 21, Fillmore) Khalid (May 23, Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheare) Bishop Briggs (May 25, Fillmore) Big Boi (May 30, Fillmore) The Mineral Girls FINAL SHOW, Museum Mouth, Dollar Signs, Dollhands (June 2, Milestone) Skating Polly, Potty Mouth, Alright & The Boron Heist (June 6, Milestone) The Posies (June 10, Neighborhood Theatre) David Ryan Harris (June 13, Evening Muse) Foreigner (July 4, PNC Music Pavilion) Sam Smith (July 6, Spectrum Center) Barenaked Ladies (July 5, Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheare) Erasure (July 11, Fillmore) Digital Noir: Michael Price and DJ Spider (July 14, Milestone) The Mood Kings (July 15, Evening Muse) Janelle Monae (July 24, Fillmore) Weezer, Pixies (July 25, PNC Music Pavilion) Marilyn Manson (August 1, Fillmore) Griffin House (August 10, Neighborhood Theatre) Ultrfaux (August 30, Evening Muse) Alan Jackson (September 15, Spectrum Center) Maroon 5 (October 4, Spectrum Center) Chvrches (October 16, Fillmore)

COUNTRY/FOLK James Taylor & His All-Star Band, Bonnie Raitt (Spectrum Center) Jenny Don’t And The Spurs (Evening Muse) Open Mic/Open Jam (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK Bald Brotherhood (RiRa Irish Pub) David Bromberg Quintet (Neighborhood

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.

THIS SATURDAY

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WITH SPECIAL GUEST

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CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 21

#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.

22 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

ARTS

FEATURE

A ‘BRILLIANT’ TRANSITION Charlotte’s ace comic takes on a touchy-feely challenge

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

W

RITTEN BY TWO Brits, Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, Every Brilliant Thing began life in 2013 in a little English town and didn’t achieve any kind of renown until Donahoe brought the one-man show across the pond in an offBroadway production the following year. An HBO movie in 2016, a coveted engagement at Spoleto Festival USA last season, and numerous productions across the country have spread the word.

To an uncommon degree, this one-man show relies on audience participation to tell the story. When a vet comes by to put down the young narrator’s dog, Sherlock Bones, a person from the audience is picked to play the vet. When Mum is taken “to hospital,” an audience member helps deliver the scene where Dad explains that the boy’s mother has made her first suicide attempt.

And when the boy draws up his list of “everything brilliant in the world. Everything worth living for,” in a lifelong effort to cheer Mum up and keep her alive, audience members who are given hand-written scraps of paper before the show call out items on the epic list: #1, ice cream, #2, water fights, and so on.

But Every Brilliant Thing doesn’t have to be a one-man show. Or British. At Spirit Square, where the Three Bone Theatre production opens next week, it won’t be.

“One of the exciting things about the script is that the playwright has specified that this story can be told by any actor, any gender identity, any race, any age,” says Three Bone artistic director Robin Tynes.

Rehearsals started back in December.

There were no auditions. With so much emceeing, audience interaction, and standup comedy skill required, your gardenvariety audition wouldn’t help a director to make her choice. Tynes just handed the script to Tania Kelly.

Tynes needed someone who could draw an audience to Duke Energy Theater, somebody with proven improv chops.

“Tania was an obvious choice to me. She has extensive emcee experience, comedy experience through Robot Johnson and other shows, and people love watching her on stage. We worked with Tania in our production of Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, so I knew she had the dramatic chops for the piece. I think she’s an excellent actress who often times gets pigeonholed into solely comedic roles.”

EVERY BRILLIANT THING PHOTO COURTESY OF THREE BONE THEATRE

“THIS IS A REALLY FUNNY SHOW ABOUT DEPRESSION.” TANIA KELLY Kelly offers a slightly different account of getting the script from Tynes. “I read it,” she recalls, “and then immediately sent her a message that said, ‘What do I need to do to be in this??’ We had a meeting and then I got to do the best thing ever. I wanted to do this show so bad because I immediately related to the story. But then on top of that, the writer also gave a lot of freedom in the casting of the narrator with all those really interesting footnotes. So, I don’t think anything super drastic needed to be changed.”

Recently named the recipient of A Seat at the Table’s inaugural “She Is Dope” Award, Kelly is best known for how smart, brainy, snarky, and caustic her performances have been. She was the worst psychiatrist ever in Beyond Therapy in 2011 and a prodigiously misinformed humanities professor last year in Women Playing Hamlet. But Kelly’s dopiest exploit remains her stint as both Dromios in the 2016 Chickspeare presentation of The Comedy of Errors.

Tynes plans to give Kelly a more intimate and clubby atmosphere to work in at Duke Energy Theater, reducing seating capacity to around 100 people and putting her star to work before the action begins, working and engaging the crowd. Kelly agrees that her

unique résumé has been invaluable.

“Robot Johnson has definitely been a master class in ‘Just roll with it, trust your friends, and man these drunks are loud,’” Kelly quips. “Also I was a DJ/emcee for tweens for Radio Disney for like five years, and I feel like that skill has really helped lately. But also yes, this is still, for real, absolutely terrifying.”

With all the unpredictable audience participation that Kelly is called upon to cope with, the rehearsal process had to be re-engineered. It wasn’t altogether private, one-on-one, or hush-hush.

“Danielle Melendez, our stage manager, and Robin have worked really hard to organize a series of test audiences for me to interact with for just those scenes. Which has made this such a fun and unique process for all of us. We’ve been essentially running a series of experiments. It’s been pretty cool.”

Kelly doesn’t mention that a recent performance at Catawba College earned her a standing ovation, but Tynes does. There’s still some polishing going on behind the scenes as opening night approaches. Yet the object has never been to make the Three Bone version anything like the off-Broadway production that won Every Brilliant Thing its acclaim. Tynes has devoutly avoided watching

8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., May 17-19, 24-26.

Duke Energy Theater, 345 N. College St. $22-$28. blumenthalarts.org.

any other version of the show, including the HBO special.

“It was also thrilling for us,” says Tynes, “to interpret and mold this script that was crafted by a white British man to fit an African-American woman. While casting Tania was not intentionally political — she was hands-down the best person for the job — it has inherently changed how I view the script. We’re discussing and diving into mental health, and the demographic in the United States with the least access to mental health care is women of color. I love that by having Tania play this role, a woman of color is at the forefront of this discussion about mental health care and support systems.”

Davidson’s pudgy cuddliness will vanish when Kelly takes over his role, but the heavy moments — and the touchy-feely ones — will be part of the challenge that she’s embracing. Kelly dismisses any talk of the larger significance of the event. “This is a really funny show about depression,” she insists. “I’m just telling a really gorgeously written story.”

Fair warning: you might feel otherwise.

With all its shtick and spontaneity, Every Brilliant Thing becomes something of a ritual when different audience voices chime in, a ritual of empathy, celebration, and healing.

“Actually, we are all telling this story together,” Kelly agrees. “The audience is creating this with me every night. I have never done anything like this before. I can’t wait for y’all to see it!”

Oh, and don’t be surprised if Sherlock Bones is renamed Chuck Barkley. He’s Kelly’s dog now, and it’s Kelly’s show.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 23

24 | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAY. 10 - MAY. 16, 2018 | 25

ENDS

NIGHTLIFE

GOOD FORTUNE A night at the Comedy Zone with Belmont’s favorite daughter ON FRIDAY, I received a text from my boo

asking if I wanted to go to a comedy show. I’ve been to a couple comedy shows, movies and operas (i.e. The Book of Mormon), but I’ve never sought them out on my own — unless we’re talking about the time Katt Williams did standup on 4/20 a few years ago. However, I’m always down for a good time, especially when my “mans” is going to be there.

Before that, however, I had to make sure I made it to Harris Teeter for my P.I.C.’s birthday shindig. I spoke a few weeks ago about the allure of pregaming or maybe even just hanging for the night at bottle shops and grocery stores, like the Harris Teeter wine bar on Providence Road. I somehow ended up sleeping until 3 p.m. so of course I was running late. I showed up, grabbed a glass of rosé and settled in to giving all the hugs.

The next stop on the birthday tour was Tilt — her fave spot — for more drinks and a catered meal. For those who have never tried, certain special folk just might be able to convince the right person at Tilt to let them bring in some pulled pork, mac and cheese and jalapeno bites. It was 6:30 p.m. before I knew it and the comedy show was starting at 7 p.m.

who it was or not, but I was definitely telling I walked to The Corner Pub – you already people I was going to see “Future. No not the knew that would make an appearance – and rapper, the lesbian comedian.” (Glad I didn’t soon after our Uber was on the way. When repeat that too often to people who actually we arrived, it felt weird to be walking to weren’t ignorant.) Clearly, I was wrong, the the proper door and not stumbling down feature was Fortune Feimster, a native from La Revolucion upstairs. And walking of Belmont, North Cackalacky! And in to The Comedy Zone - Charlotte just like that, I was on board. was that much weirder. “I must UnFORTUNately, (see have been a lot drunker the last what I did there?), The time I was here,” I thought Comedy Zone didn’t post to myself. Why? Because it anything about the two looks a lot like a crowded opening comedians so Steak ‘n Shake.

I can’t tell you who they The tables are were. What I can tell you awkwardly close together is the first comedian, also and it was already packed a lesbian, was solid. She when we showed up. We covered everything from not squeezed in to our seats at a AERIN SPRUILL thinking she was a “gay-by” four top along the wall on the (aka born gay) to discovering that left side. Thank goodness for a she likes black things inside of her boyfriend who’s strategic when it (that don’t involve a male) and the entire comes to placement because my anxiety performance was filled with genuine laughter. would NOT have been able to deal otherwise.

The second guy pretty much fell flat.

Either way. I’m not lying when I say that Maybe an acquired taste? He kept joking I had NO IDEA who I was getting ready to about losing the crowd via certain jokes, so see. In fact, I don’t know if I’d misheard the there’s a possibility that the crowd just didn’t featured comedian’s name when I was told

align with his sense of humor.

Naturally, however, Fortune took home the gold. She walked out in a button up that she unbuttoned to reveal a tee that said, “Cherie Berry lifts me up!” As to be expected from referencing perhaps the state’s most recognized elected official, that joke landed before Fortune had said a word. She, too, kept it super light. In fact, she kept the spotlight on herself for the most part.

She joked about how kidnappers didn’t want to steal her (even though she’s the perfect candy-loving candidate) because she looked like the kid from Bad Santa, and if you take a gander at her Instagram, you’ll see EXACTLY what she means.

What took the cake about her performance though? Her ability to ad lib was also on point!

When you’re asking someone from China how the sushi is there and you can’t catch your breath because you’re attempting to correct yourself and rephrase your question and say “I mean, sweet and sour chicken?!” And if your takeaway is along the lines of, “Guess you had to be there...” check her out in “The Standups” on Netflix and see for yourself!

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1 Ones doing stand-up 7 Dancer’s bodysuit 14 Roosevelt’s predecessor 20 Wide road 21 Work history summaries 22 Unabridged 23 What many a thin person has 25 Be there for 26 “What -- is new?”

27 Actor Benicio -- Toro 28 Here, to Yves 29 -- carte (not prix fixe) 30 Prefix with fascist 31 Beams 33 Specialty of many emergency teams 37 Is sore 40 Ballet move 42 Dawn deity 43 Nutrition Facts group 44 Alternative to jogging 48 Recurrent theme 51 Often-stubbed digit 52 Used a saber 54 Color-mixing board 58 Smoke waste 59 -- port (PC connection) 61 Ladderlike in organization 63 Charlton Heston film 64 Harry at Hogwarts 67 Cornmeal mush 69 Starting on 71 Jim-dandy 73 “Mean Girls” actress Gasteyer 74 Stretches of history 75 Vigilante retribution, perhaps 81 Informant Snowden 84 Hindu belief 85 Moment 87 See 56-Down 88 China’s Sun -- -sen 91 Keeping up contact 93 Bait 95 Without risk 97 Some lap dogs, briefly 99 It doesn’t stop at a lot of stations 101 Big hauler 104 Dernier -- (latest

thing) 106 Bad guy in “Othello” 107 Spine-chilling 108 Improv comic’s skill 113 Sail support 115 Clickable address 116 State of rage 117 Mattel man 118 “Emmy” has two 119 Had to repay 123 Element in antiseptics 125 Wish for getting better 129 Shells out 130 Australian sheepdogs 131 Skittish 132 Badger 133 Moment 134 Sculptures without limbs

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1 Small eatery 2 Egg shape 3 See 124-Down 4 It accrues 5 Summa -- laude 6 Dilapidated 7 Kazakh river 8 State north of Kan. 9 The same, at the start?

10 May bloom 11 Friends, in Florence 12 Have a home 13 Brit. military honor 14 Cures 15 Scheduled 16 Mel of the diamond 17 Austrian port 18 Borgnine with an Oscar 19 Totally alters 24 Coil deviser Nikola 29 Fable author 32 Invite to a movie, e.g.

33 Lawn tools 34 Not much, as of salt 35 DVD- -- drive 36 Wrongdoer 37 “Mamma Mia” group 38 NFL receiver Carter 39 Zenith 41 Santa helper 45 Part of SSW 46 Bowl game gp.

47 Hair care products 49 -- by Dana (perfume) 50 Old TV’s “-- Three Lives”

53 Info to input 55 Like college juniors 56 With 87-Across, fishy hero 57 Little bits of work 60 Lover boy 62 Cubs great Sandberg 65 Straying from the subject 66 Diva Diana 68 Increases fraudulently 69 Sparkling wine city 70 Duck relative 72 TV-advertised music label 76 Veritable 77 It beats a 10 78 Slush Puppie company 79 Wheedle 80 Leg on which a cello rests 82 Wimpy type 83 Tapers off 86 Hip-hop headwear 89 Others, in Latin 90 Daly of “Cagney & Lacey” 92 Anne of “Wag the Dog” 94 Less than zero: Abbr.

96 Worry about 98 -- Lanka 100 Amiens’ river 101 Slogging-in-mud sound 102 A moon of Jupiter 103 Less harsh 105 Bic buy 109 Sorts 110 Piece of hair 111 Boat spines 112 Like klutzes 114 Natty tie 118 In the past, in the past 120 Takes as a spouse 121 “And so ...”

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I’m so sorry, DADAC. I hope you have a friend you can confide in, because you need a shoulder to cry on and I can’t provide that for you here.

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I’m just a little older than you — okay, I’m a whole lot older than you. I came out in the summer of 1981 — and two years later, healthy, young gay men started to sicken and die.

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TAURUS (April 20

to May 20) Just when you thought you had everything planned to the smallest detail, you get some news that could unsettle things.

But a timely explanation helps put it all back on track.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Home and work continue to compete for your attention. But you handle it well by giving each its proper due.

Someone you trust offers valuable advice.

Listen to it.

CANCER (June 21 to

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July 22) Unsettling news creates a difficult but not impossible situation. Continue to follow your planned routine, but keep your mind open to a possible change down the line.

LEO (July 23 to August 22)

Lick your wounded pride if you like, but it’s a better idea to find out why your suggestions were rejected. What you learn could help you deal with an upcoming situation.

VIRGO

(August 23 to September 22) Feeling a bit listless? No wonder.

You might be pushing too hard to finish everything on your todo list. Cutting it down could help get your energy levels up.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Taking time out of your busy schedule might be the best way to handle that sensitive private matter. It will help reassure everyone involved about your priorities.

SCORPIO (October 23

to November 21) Insist on full disclosure by all parties before agreeing to be part of a “great deal.” What you learn should help you decide whether to go with it or not.

SAG I T TA R I U S (November 22 to December 21) Your decision to protect the secret that was entrusted to you might irk some people. But it also wins you the admiration of those who value trust and loyalty.

CAPRICORN (December

22 to January 19) Creative activities take on a practical approach as you realize you might be able to market your work. Ask for advice from someone experienced in this area.

AQUARIUS

(January 20 to February 18) If you’re suddenly a bit unsure about your decision, ask trusted colleagues and/or friends or family members for suggestions that could help resolve your doubts.

PISCES

(February 19 to March 20) A workplace situation could get stormy. But stay on course until there’s a solution that meets with everyone’s approval, and things can finally calm down.

BORN THIS WEEK You keep an open mind on most matters, making you the confidante of choice for people who need your honest counsel.

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