2018_Issue 24 Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | AUGUST 1 - AUGUST 7, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 24

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CREATIVE LOAFING IS PUBLISHED BY WOMACK NEWSPAPERS, INC. CHARLOTTE, NC 28206.

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EDITORIAL

NEWS EDITOR • Ryan Pitkin rpitkin@clclt.com FILM CRITIC • Matt Brunson mattonmovies@gmail.com THEATER CRITIC • Perry Tannenbaum perrytannenbaum@gmail.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS • Erin Tracy-Blackwood, Allison Braden, Catherine Brown, Konata Edwards, Jeff Hahne, Vanessa Infanzon, Alison Leininger, Ari LeVaux, Kia O. Moore, Grey Revell, Dan Savage, Debra Renee Seth, Aerin Spruill,

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After going viral with a Rich Boy remix in 2012 and traveling the country for several years, Simon Smthng has brought his beat-making prowess back home to Charlotte. See him at Snug Harbor’s Le Bang on Thursday, August 2, and learn his story in this week’s music feature on page 18.

PHOTO BY ALEX YLLANES

We put out weekly 8

NEWS&CULTURE CAPTIONS CLOSED New bills pushed through by NC GOP will withhold info from voters in the booth

BY SOPHIE WHISNANT 10 NEWSMAKER: SARAH DELIA BY RYAN PITKIN 11 NEWS OF THE WEIRD

FOOD&DRINK

12

BOOZIN’ ON A BUDGET PLAYS AROUND The crew hops around four of Charlotte’s best game bars

BY STAFF

16

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

18

MUSIC HOME AGAIN With wanderlust behind him, Simon Smthng is ready to refine and define Charlotte’s sound

BY MARK KEMP 19 MUSICMAKER: IT LOOKS SAD. BY MARK KEMP 20 SOUNDBOARD

22

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT FORTY WHACKS WITH A DIFFERENT KIND OF AXE Actor’s Theatre takes on Lizzie Borden in new rock musical

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM 23 FILM REVIEWS BY MATT BRUNSON 24 ARTSPEAK: LOCAL FILMMAKER ALEX GREENBERG BY PAT MORAN

26

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

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

COVER DESIGN

BY DANA VINDIGNI CLCLT.COM | AUGUST 1 - AUGUST 7, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 24

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NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

RIGHT THROUGH THEIR FINGERS

CMPD sent out a press release last week describing an incident that happened in north Charlotte that, quite frankly, didn’t make the department look so good. According to the release, officers had pulled over 20-year-old Dontray Farr on Sunset Road and arrested him. Pharr was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car while officers searched his vehicle. It was at this time that Pharr decided he wasn’t in the mood to hang around, but first he had to deal with his handcuffs. He maneuvered himself so that his handcuffs were in front of him, and then managed to “squeeze through a very small window in the interior of the patrol car that was open to allow air conditioning into the prisoner area,” according to the report. This put him in the front of the car, and once you’re there, you might as well go for a joyride, right?

Pharr drove off in the cruiser, leaving police behind with his car, but they weren’t willing to make a trade. The patrol car was later found in the Coulwood area, but Pharr was nowhere to be found, despite searches from the K9 unit and CMPD’s helicopter, Snoopy.

The incident occurred on July 24, and as of Creative Loafing’s press deadline, he had still not been found.

STRUCK OUT Staff members at BB&T

Ballpark had to turn to police for help last week when a young dudebro got a little out of hand at a Knight game. According to the report, someone working at a beer stand told two nearby off-duty police officers who were working security that a guy was visibly drunk so he had refused to serve him. The drunken fan didn’t like this and became “mouthy,” according to the report, then continued to try to buy beer at other stands, all of which refused to serve him. When he sat down in a nearby seat and began to vape, officers approached him and told him he’d have to stop. The entitled douchebag “refused to quit vaping,” according to the report, and so was kicked out of the park. He was willing to fight for his right to vape, though, because a brief time later, he jumped a fence to get back into the game and was promptly arrested and charged with trespassing and possession of Xanax.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN A young woman

in Davidson played a high-stakes game of hide and seek with a police officer last week, but ended up on the losing side. An officer reported that he was driving on Catawba Avenue when he saw a woman whom he knew to have an outstanding warrant. When she saw the officer, she ran into a nearby residence. The officer knocked on the door, but was told that the woman had run out the back door. When he went out back, the man found a pair of shoes sitting on the shoreline of Lake Norman, and noticed that they

were completely dry, despite the fact that it had been raining all day. He continued on that path and eventually found the suspect hiding in a spillway tucked under a bunch of branches, according to the report.

RED RUM A 35-year-old man from east Charlotte filed a police report after discovering a mess at his home and deciding it was most probably a threat. The man told officers that at some point between noon and 12:30 p.m. on one recent day, some unknown suspect put blood all over his door. He also believed that his car had been tampered with. According to the report, “the victim believed that the suspect may carry out the threat,” despite him not knowing what the threat actually was.

A GOOD DAY’S WORK A 34-year-old

woman in the Coulwood area of northwest Charlotte finally turned to police last week when it became evident that the man she had hired to do a job for her was actually quite worthless. The woman told police that back in April she had paid a man $1,300 to put up a fence in her backyard. For three weeks, the man never showed up at her house, so she finally called him and asked when he planned to start actually doing the job she had hired him for. He responded by saying he would be there the next day, and by the grace of God he actually showed up, although he didn’t do much. The woman told police he put up three fence posts and left, and she hasn’t seen him since.

NO ESCAPE A man thought he could

make a smooth getaway when he was caught breaking into a business in northwest Charlotte last week, but was not so lucky.

According to the report, the man had broken into a development firm on Mt. Holly Road, but officers were soon tipped off and showed up inside. The man at first acted as if he would be compliant, but then pulled away from one officer and pushed another before making his way to the back of the business.

The suspect tried to make his escape through three different exit points but found them all to be locked or blocked. When police finally got hold of him for good, he was found to be wanted in another county, but they also added their own charges of burglary, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer.

SHE’S GOT A POINT Some police reports are simply perfect and need no context or introduction, so I shall present this brief report about an incident that occurred in the Raintree neighborhood in its entirety and leave it at that: “On Wednesday, July 4, 2018, the victim stated that her daughter threatened to kill her with an EpiPen.” All stories are pulled from police reports at CMPD headquarters. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

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NEWS

FEATURE

CAPTIONS CLOSED New bills pushed through

by NC GOP will withhold information from voters in the booth

BY SOPHIE WHISNANT

I

N A SPECIAL SESSION

called hastily on July 24, the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly passed two bills that left Democratic representatives and a huge chunk of Charlotte’s residents wondering: What the hell just happened?

Let us break it down for you.

House Bill 3 will limit the description of proposed constitutional amendments on ballots, meaning voters who haven’t done their research on a given amendment won’t have explanations in front of them, as was mandated by a 2016 law. Senate Bill 3 will force one state Supreme Court candidate to be on the November ballot without mention of his party affiliation. Opposing lawmakers believe both bills will withhold information from voters this November.

Six amendments to the state constitution will be on the ballot in the coming election, covering topics from voter ID to hunting and fishing. Proposed amendments are supposed to be accompanied by short captions that inform voters about what they’re voting for or against, but that’s all going to change.

In past elections, the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission — a bipartisan committee comprised of Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (D), Attorney General Josh Stein (D) and Legislative Services Officer Paul Coble (R) — have written those captions, which appeared on placards and pamphlets found at voting sites. This year, they were to be included on ballots to help voters better understand what they’re voting on.

HB3, pushed by N.C. Rep. David Lewis, a Republican who called the special session, flew through the General Assembly, with votes split along party lines. The legislation states that instead of informative captions about the amendments, each item on the ballot will only include the words “constitutional amendment” as its title, leaving voters to fend for themselves.

Republicans claim the bill was necessary to prevent the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission, which has a Democrat majority, from writing politicized captions.

N.C. Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat who represents Charlotte, says the legal jargon that makes up each amendment, which voters are able to read in the voting booth, is too misleading for the casual voter to 8 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Rep. David Lewis called his fellow legislators back to the North Carolina Legislative Building for a special session on July 24. make an informed judgement. He says two amendments that allow Republicans judicial privileges while taking away rights from the governor are particularly dishonest.

Jackson is referring to the constitutional amendment that gives the legislature the power to appoint the elections board, while removing the governor from that board. The other amendment would also take away from the governor’s power, this one letting the legislature choose two judicial nominees from the suggestions of a nonpartisan commission that the governor would then decide between, rather than letting the governor continue to appoint his or her own nominees.

“Basically, legislative leadership wants citizens to transfer more power to them by passing these amendments, and they want to make sure the ballot language doesn’t tip people off that that’s what’s really happening,” Jackson said. “This primarily concerns the amendments regarding judicial vacancies at the state board of elections for which the ballot language will now be incredibly misleading.”

N.C. Rep. John Autry, a former Charlotte City Council member who now represents Mecklenburg County, agreed that the lack of captions will lead to Republicans allowing misleading amendments on the ballot.

“Their intention is to obfuscate and

hide the real impact of these constitutional amendments on the people of North Carolina,” Autry said.

But Republicans said eliminating captions prevents overly politicized language from making it on the ballot. N.C. GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse tweeted, “The voters will cast their judgements on the actual amendment(s) text. Citizens will vote on the constitutional amendments. No captions, no short titles.”

Senior Political Analyst Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh, said the language of the amendments will be enough for voters to make a decision.

“I think that basically what this will end up doing is reduce the possibility of any type of confusion,” Kokai said. “It became clear that there was the opportunity for some partisan shenanigans to be involved.”

Kokai also pointed out that this November would have been the first time the captions would appear on the ballot.

The General Assembly passed the law charging the Commission with captionwriting in 1983. Since then, the captions were included on placards at voting locations and in pamphlets handed out by volunteers there.

Now, Kokai said, the Republicans are trying to fix something that they, themselves, broke.

PHOTO BY ALLY LABAR

Following the one-day special session, Gov. Roy Cooper sent out an email blast that called the move to leave captions off the ballot deceptive. Lewis tweeted his response: “Calling a Constitutional Amendment a ‘Constitutional Amendment’ is not misleading.”

Kokai was critical of the Democrats’ response to the bills. He said the rhetoric on the floor and in these emails went too far. “[Democrats are] basically talking about the General Assembly coming in and writing misleading ballot language and trying to deceive voters,” Kokai said. “If you you look at what the General Assembly actually did, it’s just taking away the prospect of misleading language.”

While the elimination of captions was a blow for Democrats, Jackson said legislators at least had some notice that this change was coming. The same couldn’t be said for SB3, which was slipped through after the HB3 vote.

Jackson said lawmakers were in recess on Tuesday afternoon when Republicans suddenly filed the bill, which retroactively changed election laws, a move he believes was meant to help the GOP win a state Supreme Court appointment.

The bill, similarly pushed through the General Assembly on the same day it was filed, will require a 90-day deadline for candidates to make any party affiliation changes before

filing to run for office in order for the candidate’s party affiliation to be listed on the ballot.

This legislation impacts Chris Anglin, who’s running for state Supreme Court.

Anglin had been registered as a Democrat, but weeks before filing to run changed his affiliation to Republican, not meeting the proposed 90-day deadline.

Many Republicans were not ready to welcome Anglin into their party with open arms. In an interview with The Charlotte Observer, Woodhouse called Anglin “the enemy.”

With two Republicans on the ballot, many believed the conservative vote would splinter, giving Anita Earls, a Democrat, an edge and potentially increasing the Democrats advantage at the Supreme Court from 4-3 to 5-2.

Jackson pointed out that Anglin will be the only candidate affected by the retroactive change. While Justice Barbara Jackson will have an R next to her name, and Earls a D, Anglin will have nothing next to his.

Jackson believes the reason for this bill stems from legislation set earlier this year eliminating judicial primaries.

“Republican leadership set a trap for Democrats by eliminating the judicial primaries, hoping that lots of Democrats would run against one Republican for Supreme Court, splitting the vote for Democrats and helping the Republicans win,” he said.

From there, Jackson said one Republican group aggressively mailed Democratic attorneys across the state to encourage them to run for the Supreme Court.

“Thousands of Democratically registered attorneys got mail saying, you know, ‘Can’t you picture yourself on the Supreme Court?’” he said. “It was very blatant.”

The move backfired, and Republicans now are trying to “spring themselves loose” from the consequences, Jackson said.

Whether Anglin running without a listed party affiliation will actually benefit Republicans remains uncertain, but the intentions of the GOP in speedily passing the legislation were clear, Jackson said.

He pointed out that the ballots will be printed on August 8, leaving little time for debate on the issue.

“This is about power,” Jackson said.

“That’s all this is about. Eliminating the captions was about protecting their power grab.”

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bills July 27, but the Republicans have the numbers to overturn it. Democrats will have to rely on a court challenge to keep the legislation from going into effect.

Kokai is unsure the senate bill keeping Anglin from listing his affiliation will hold up.

“The problem for the Republicans is, that’s the situation they set up, with their own rules,” he said. “They’re trying to correct a problem they created themselves, and I don’t know that the courts are going to let them get away with it.”

For Autry, the integrity of voting is at stake. “The bottom line is the Republicans’ only hope for passing these constitutional amendments is to shut the public out and deceive voters about the consequences,” he said.

N.C. Sen. Jeff Jackson

PHOTO BY JUSTIN DRISCOLL

Autry continued, “The amendments make it harder to vote if they are passed, and it also allows Republicans to pick their own judges, to appoint their own regulators and members to these commissions where a lot of policy boils up from.”

Autry said the changes will effectively roll back checks and balances that exist in the state government.

“So many of their laws since they took control in 2011 have been deemed unconstitutional by judges,” Autry said.

“So now you’re going to set yourself up as the means for picking those judges, who will make those determinations about the constitutionality of the laws that you’re writing. That seems to fly in the face of our democratic principles.”

Autry’s greatest hope now is that voters will decide against the amendments, which he said would create a state constitution that “will take an entire bookshelf to hold.” He believes a simpler document would benefit voters.

As for Jackson, he plans to hold the Republicans accountable.

At the special session, Jackson spoke out against HB3 on the senate floor. He said the language in the amendment concerning judicial vacancies was dishonest, that the amendment makes it seem like an independent commission will make appointment decisions, although in actuality, appointments will be made by the GOP-led General Assembly.

“I said, ‘You’re just deliberately misleading people in order to accumulate a little more power,’” Jackson recalled.

“And you know what? No one stood up and said I was wrong.

“They all have microphones on their desk,” Jackson said.

“None of them bothered to try and correct me, because they know I’m right.”

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

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charlotteknights.com CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 9

NEWS

NEWSMAKER

A PIECE OF HERSTORY Sarah Delia wraps ‘She Says’ podcast with panel discussion on sexual assault

BY RYAN PITKIN

I MEET SARAH Delia at the Starbucks in the Hilton Charlotte University Place, just across the parking lot from the offices of WFAE, where she works. In front of the hotel, two large PDGA flags fly, and a conference room next to the Starbucks has been converted into a mini-convention hall for disc golfers.

I mention that Charlotte is hosting the Amateur World Championships in disc golf this week, and Delia is not surprised. “We always see different conventions coming in and out of here, bringing different types of people,” she says. “Last year there was a wrestling convention…” She trails off, but her facial expression tells me to use my imagination.

Delia and her team have just released the ninth episode of their podcast, She Says, in which they tell the story of Linda (not her real name), a woman who was the victim of a sexual assault in Charlotte in 2015. In the podcast, Delia continuously compares Linda’s experience — and that of other sexual assault victims — to a winding road that can be hard to navigate and even harder to get off of. (Delia’s vision of the winding road is portrayed in the maze-like logo for the podcast, pictured right) When we meet, Delia is looking ahead to Thursday, August 2, when WFAE releases the podcast’s season finale. That night, she will appear in a panel discussion hosted

by WFAE’s Charlotte Talks and including a representative of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the sexual abuse survivors nonprofit Brave Step and others.

They will discuss the podcast and answer any questions from the public about the process that sexual assault victims go through.

In the following interview, Delia talks about what she learned in her reporting for She Says, and what she hopes her audience takes away from both the podcast and the panel discussion.

Creative Loafing: What can we expect at Thursday’s panel discussion?

Sarah Delia: We’re working with Charlotte Talks; Mike Collins will be moderating it. I know the first part we’re going to be talking a lot about the podcast and the process and things that we discovered. And I’m really glad that [the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department] is also willing to be a part of it.

Have you been in contact with CMPD since the podcast started running?

We are constantly in touch with CMPD, because we are fact-checking so much. They have played ball with that, which is nice.

10 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

The CMPD doesn’t come off great in some of the episodes. Have you discussed other aspects of the podcast with them since you started it?

I did have a discussion with Deputy Chief Katrina Graue, who’s going to be on the panel on Thursday, and her conversation probably will be in part of the last episode.

She alluded to it being a learning experience for CMPD, and that’s really nice to hear, that there’s been some reflection. But yeah, they’ve been in touch with us.

It will be interesting to see. I’ve covered a fair amount of criminal justice things in general, and I plan to continue that coverage. I hope that this experience has only strengthened that relationship and there’s a mutual respect, because I respect what they do. I told them at the beginning of this, it would be really easy to just blame the police for everything. It’s more complicated than that.

You’ve spent more than a year with Linda, learning her story and reporting on her case, but you are also still putting together episodes right up to deadline.

What’s that balance been like?

The way we rolled it out was, we had like three and a half episodes done, but then things even changed with that. Things just come up, and when you’ve been following someone for a year and they have an open case, there are things that come up [and] you’re like, “Let’s go back and put that piece in.”

And you have these listener questions where you’re like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” That’s why it’s awesome that our listeners are so included in the podcast. It’s like it’s their podcast, too. And I want people to feel that way.

How important was that interactive aspect to you going in?

That was really important to me. Linda’s story is not everyone’s story. There are pieces of Linda’s story that I think will resonate with a lot of people, but then there are parts of her story that won’t, or it’s completely different. I can’t tell everyone’s story, but I can have you tell me your story, and we can play those back.

I remember each one that we played. The one that we played really early about the woman who was in the military and the guy that said, “You can report it but who’s going to believe you?” as he walked out the door. And the one that we put at the end, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, but we all listened to that and we were like, “Oh my God.” I really like thinking about the podcast as an answering machine [they play listener phone messages at the end of each episode].

We’re answering questions that you have, but

Sarah Delia outside of CMPD headquarters.

PHOTO BY LOGAN CYRUS

BEYOND ‘SHE SAYS’: SEXUAL ASSAULT IN CHARLOTTE Aug. 2, 7-8:30 p.m.; McGlohon Theatre, 345 N. College St.; wfae.org

then at the end, there’s no bells and whistles — and by now I hope people get it, if they stay until the end, you’re going to get like a special treat, you get to hear from your listeners. It’s like sitting through the end of the movies and there’s bonus material and it’s like, “Oh, this is what I get for sitting here.” We just let them play, and we don’t say anything about them.

You did almost an entire episode about Emily, whose experience CL reported on in 2017. What made you decide to go more in-depth with her story?

Yeah, so we have that in common. And I read your piece and actually re-read it a bunch of times when I was doing Emily’s story.

I wanted to show two things with Emily’s story: some things are similar, but some things are very different. The stranger thing is similar, but the circumstances around both of their assaults are very different. And I also wanted to show how the things that Emily found problematic were very different than what Linda found problematic. Everyone’s sexual assault story is different.

But then, to me, on paper, Emily has always been the one that got off the winding road. She got justice; the guy admitted he did it, he’s in prison right now. She got to see him be sentenced. And that’s not something that Linda has gotten, and I don’t know that she will get that. And so I wanted to show, this is what the system looks like when it works, and I’m using air quotes because there are still problems when it works. But I asked Emily that question at the end, I’m like, “Well to me, you’re the one who got off the winding road, but are you on it or not?”

And she was like, “To me, I’m in the middle

LOGO DESIGN BY MATTHEW SCOTT

of it,” because it’s all about her processing her trauma.

So that was really interesting. And I think that you can think that you’re off it, but then if you take two steps back then you’re back on.

What can folks expect in the final episode on Thursday?

So basically, where we’ve left things off with Linda’s story is she did the first step to get a no-contact order, which is really just a piece of paper. It does nothing. So we go through the first part and it’s like, “Yeah, she got her no-contact order, that’s awesome,” but that’s just step one. Now she has to go back, and the next time this guy is going to be served and he’s going to go, and they’re going to have to be in the same room as each other, and he’s not in custody anymore, and it’s the closest she’s been to having any kind of idea of a trial.

So that’s how we’re going to start things off. And then later today I’m doing — not an exit interview with [Linda], because this is only the last episode for a while. So next week is the finale, but it’s like the finale with an asterisk next to it. We’ll be back because her story is still ongoing.

RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

NEWS

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

ALARMING HEADLINE Infamous South Beach street artist Jonathan Crenshaw, 46, attracts a lot of attention in Miami among tourists, who watch him paint on a canvas — using his feet. Crenshaw does not have arms and is homeless. Profiled in a local newspaper in 2011, Crenshaw told of a difficult childhood (he also claimed Gloria Estefan had given birth to 200 of his children). He landed in the headlines again after stabbing a Chicago man with a pair of scissors on July 10. According to the Miami Herald, Cesar Coronado, 22, told police he had approached Crenshaw to ask for directions, when Crenshaw jumped up and, using his feet, stabbed Coronado. Crenshaw’s story is that as he lay on the pavement, Coronado punched him in the head — so he stabbed him, tucked the scissors into his waistband and walked away. Police found Crenshaw, who has a lengthy arrest record, nearby and arrested him.

BOLD MOVE Faith Pugh of Memphis, Tennessee, had a date to remember on July 14 with Kelton Griffin. Her casual acquaintance from high school “just out of the blue texted me and asked me to go out,” Pugh told WREGTV. They took her car and stopped at a gas station, where Griffin asked Pugh to go inside and buy him a cigar. But while she was inside, “He drove off. I came outside and my car was gone,” Pugh said. Shortly, Pugh received a text from her godsister, telling her Griffin had just asked her out on a date. He picked up the godsister in Pugh’s car and headed to a drive-in movie. “He didn’t even have any money,” Pugh said. “She actually paid their way to get in the drive-in just so I could get my car back.” Pugh alerted the police to the car’s location, and they arrested Griffin for theft of property. “I hope he’s in jail for a long time,” Pugh said.

MYSTERY SOLVED On Jan. 25, 71-year-

old Alan J. Abrahamson of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, went for his regular predawn walk to Starbucks. What happened on the way stumped police investigators until March, reported The Washington Post, and on July 13 they made their findings public.

Images from a surveillance camera show Abrahamson walking out of his community at 5:35 a.m. and about a half-hour later, the sound of a gunshot is heard. Just before 7 a.m., a dog found Abrahamson’s body, lying near a walking path. Police found no weapon, no signs of a struggle; he still had his wallet and phone. Investigators initially worked the case as a homicide, but as they dug deeper into the man’s computer searches and purchases over the past nine years, a theory developed: Abrahamson had tied a gun to a weather balloon filled with helium, shot himself, and then the gun drifted away to parts unknown. A thin line of blood on Abrahamson’s sweatshirt indicated to police that “something with the approximate width of a string passed through the blood on

the outside of the shirt,” the final report says. As for the balloon, investigators said it would likely have ascended to about 100,000 feet and exploded somewhere north of the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean.

BRIGHT IDEA It’s time once again for minor league baseball promotion fun and games! This time, however, the Montgomery (Alabama) Biscuits managed to tick off a whole generation of baseball fans. The Biscuits announced Millennial Night on July 21, featuring participation ribbons just for showing up, a napping area, selfie stations and lots of avocados, reported Fox News. While some Twitter users thought the promotion was insensitive, others were more philosophical. Dallas Godshall, 21, said, “More than targeting millennials, it’s sort of targeting older generations who like to make fun of millennials.” Pitcher Benton Ross weighed in: “If it’s insensitive, maybe they should just have thicker skin.”

PEOPLE AND THEIR PETS Tina Ballard,

56, of Okeechobee County, Florida, was arrested in North Carolina by Linville Land Harbor police on July 16 after fleeing there to “hide (her pet) monkey so that state officials could not take that monkey from her,” assistant state attorney Ashley Albright told WPBF News. Ballard’s troubles began in May, when the spider monkey, Spanky, jumped out of a shopping cart in an Okeechobee Home Depot and grabbed a cashier’s shirt, “leaving red marks on the cashier’s shoulder and back.” In June, Fox News reported, another Home Depot employee spotted Spanky in the parking lot, having escaped Ballard’s truck and dragging a leash. Spanky was spooked by the store’s sliding doors and bit the employee on the arm, grabbing her hair and running away. The employee gave chase and eventually caught Spanky, but not before suffering more bites and scratches. Spanky was in the car when Ballard was arrested and extradited back to Florida; the monkey will be placed in a primate sanctuary.

PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM US A Russian man who has covered more than 90 percent of his body — including his eyeballs — with black-ink tattoos underwent surgery on July 14 at Jardines Hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico, to remove his penis, testicles and nipples because they spoiled his body art. Adam Curlykale, 32, of Kaliningrad, an albino, was diagnosed with cancer and started the tattooing process 12 years ago to cover scars left behind from the disease.

“I always knew that I was different from the rest of society,” Curlykale told The Daily Mail.

“My favorite color, for example, has always been gray, in different tones, and that’s why my current skin color is graphite.” He plans to finish the process by inking his remaining un-tattooed skin.

COPYRIGHT 2017 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 11

The Boozin’ on a Budget crew is back, this time hitting four of the city’s best bars for playing games, because that’s what we do best.

ALL PHOTOS BY DANA VINDIGNI

FIRST STOP: THE BLIND PIG, 453 E. 36TH ST.

RP: We’ll just have to wait and see if that’s the case.

We start things off with Sharknado shots, a special served in celebration of Shark Week, before heading upstairs to the game room, where we set our sights on The Boxer, which involves a punching bag that rates the strength of your punch.

Dana Vindigni: I would like to have participated in this game but I’m not tall enough to, so I’m just going to fake it.

Ryan Pitkin: This is basically a big-dick, pissing contest, and I used to be very good at it.

DV: If you have an award for someone who can climb into the game and sit in the fucking thing then that would be me.

Carlos Valencia: I’d rather negotiate with the punching bag, talk things over with it.

Justin LaFrancois: 898, pretty pathetic.

RP: I like that you can use cards on almost all of these games, despite the fact that I just got $10 cash from the bartender.

We move on to basketball, where Sophie and Ryan face off RP: So I had 47, you had 34. In the postgame interview, can you tell me what was going through your head?

Sophie Whisnant: I was better than I expected myself to be so early on in the drinks. I feel like I will get better with more.

RP: Oh so you believe in the bell curve, that you get better at gaming as you get more drinks in you?

SW: I do.

RP: I was worried you might have to jump to hit the punching bag.

Carlos beats Justin, 51-45 RP: Carlos, how are you feeling after getting the new high score?

CV: Like a winner. I feel like I should just quit now.

RP: Justin, you were even banking shots most of the time and you lost.

CV: No, it’s forever.

We move outside to the cornhole boards RP: We’re already running into problems with keeping our beers straight because we’re all drinking PBR and putting them on the bleachers — and yes, there are bleachers pointed at the cornhole boards. I have to admit that I used to play in cornhole tournaments here and there, and actually played a couple of them here. So this might not be fair.

SW: Well dammit.

CV: I had a childhood cornhole injury so don’t hold that against me.

RP: Did you tear your rotator cuff?

CV: Sure. Is that the one that’s essential for cornhole? Whatever that is, that’s the one that I injured as a child.

JL: Yeah, I found from working in an arcade that banking is the best way to get it in on hoops, but then I spilled my beer all over myself. And I lost a ball because I tried to pick up my beer after it spilled and play one handed. And the ball came bouncing over the glass and tried to attack me, so now I’m all wet.

SECOND STOP: ABARI GAME BAR, 1721 N. DAVIDSON ST.

CV: I try not to be cocky but I do have the high score of all time on this machine.

RP: Can Santa even fly over Area 51?

RP: No, I think it’s a daily thing, and the bar just opened at 5 and we’re the first ones in.

DV: Maybe. It’s more like War Zone Santa who brings gifts of bombs and bullets and toys and guns. They’re trying to get us to go on board something, but we don’t know what

Dana and Ryan begin with a game of the classic shoot ‘em up, Area 51 DV: Shoot the boxes, because sometimes they give you gifts and stuff, like Santa.

that means. We only know how to shoot.

RP: Your accuracy is not looking too good.

DV: Seventeen percent? So that means that most of the time I was just shooting at damn boxes.

RP: That Michael Jackson motherfucker keeps popping up, lookin’ like “Thriller.”

DV: They all look like janitors to me. [laughs] Or jail prisoners. Just shoot anything that looks cool and hope that it’s a bomb.

RP: That’s why your accuracy is 17 percent.

The crew meets back up at a wall of pinball machines and starts playing a few before rallying at the bar to discuss DV: The pinball scene is sublime, some really solid games.

SW: I’ve never played pinball before, not in real life, only on the computer. I don’t know how it actually works. It was a little confusing at first. I didn’t understand the rules.

JL: I just learned how to play pinball not more than a year ago.

RP: I went through with [owner] Zach [Pulliam] one time and he taught me how each one has its separate rules and strategies and walked me through a couple machines and I ended up killing it. That’s when I learned that I really sucked at pinball for the first 30 years of my life.

Carlos and Justin hoop it up

Sophie and Carlos at the Pig

12 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Along with CL staffers and BoB veterans Ryan Pitkin, Justin LaFrancois and Dana Vindigni, this time we’ve brought along our intern Sophie Whisnant, who just turned 21 and gets quite an education in gaming, and one of our favorite Charlotte comedians, Carlos Valencia.

The crew begins to focus its collective efforts on one newer pinball machine, taking turns playing Dialed In

DV: What it means? It’s an homage to our shithole generation. Done. They’re putting fake phones in pinball machines. We’re fucked.

JL: There’s some kind of phone on here that’s showing the destruction of the planet around it, and I don’t get it. This game is 100 percent about the world ending. It seems like you download apps on your phone by causing superstorms that kill people. That’s all I’m getting from this.

Ryan and Carlos begin a game of Slugfest, a low-tech, pinball-esque baseball game

RP: I just won a participation trophy.

I’m seeing now that this is very millennialthemed.

JL: Oh, you know what, this whole thing is a metaphor for millennials.

RP: That’s what I just said, like you’re basically destroying the world so your phone doesn’t die.

CV: If you do something it doesn’t want you to do, does it write a blog about it, too?

DV: This game is stupid, like a weird sci-fi movie, but a watered-down version of everything. Look at how accurate — my phone’s at 20 percent. C’mon man, let’s go, I’m trying to fuck up the future here and it isn’t working. We’re having an alien invasion but I guess we’re also coming to terms with the low-battery situation.

SW: Both are terrifying.

JL: The most fun I’ve had since I got here was figuring out what this game means.

RP: This is how I imagine people who think baseball is boring think it looks like when they see it on TV. CV: I think this is way more exciting, actually.

RP: I feel like Dwight Gooden, playing as drunk as I am.

CV: I feel like Darryl Strawberry because I’m high on coke.

RP: Well, we should be on the same team then.

CV: This is a lot more fun than a lot of video games out right now, to be honest with you. It’s very simple. A lot of the video games now you’d have to press all these buttons for a switch-screwball-curve.

We hang out on the front patio before heading to the next spot JL: If you’re not a die-hard arcade gamer, you’re not having more than 30 minutes of fun in this place. Every game that’s not pinball is so classic to the point where you have to walk in here and be like, “Oh shit.” But if you don’t know those games, it doesn’t matter to you at all.

CV: I used to play arcade games, so when this shit opened up I was like, “Oh, I gotta check it out.” And then I was like “Oh this is why arcades sucked back then, too.” They suck coin after coin after coin so they can make as much money off of ya as possible, as opposed to console games.

RP: They do have free play during some special events and whatnot, but I think the main thing is that it’s just a nostalgia fest.

CV: Even the music was old school.

RP: Area 51 was pretty fun.

DV: Oh God, yeah it was. The thing is, truth be told, if you haven’t at some point in your life spent a little bit of time in an arcade, the appreciation level isn’t going to be there.

So you have to have gone into an arcade and remember playing games that you don’t know and you just learned because you burned money through the game. So on that level it’s successful. On the level that is it necessarily approachable for all levels and all people... ummm, that’s maybe a B minus.

CV: This was like bringing Sophie to a museum.

SW: I’ve learned so much. I didn’t know most of these games existed.

THIRD STOP: LUCKY’S BAR & ARCADE, 300 N. COLLEGE ST., #300 After a round of shots, Justin begins to make his way toward another punching bag game

RP: So you already swiped your card at The Blind Pig punching bag so many times that your bank temporarily shut down your account. Are you really wanting to do another punch beause you’re mad that I beat you?

JL: Let’s not forget that, even though it took me three tries, I beat you by 30 points eventually.

DV: Most of these games are newer, so we’ll give them that. They’re not as retro as the other places’ games. This is definitely more suited for larger crowds, not as intimate as the other spot, but it also has a disco ball, which is cute.

CV: Already it seems like a mix between Blind Pig and Abari. It’s like Abari but with some new stuff.

SW: I think it looks more fun. I feel like I could dance here. It’s not as cramped.

CV: I don’t feel as comfortable at this place because I feel like I might have to dance. The other places, there was no room to dance. I like that.

DV: I’m going to say right now, if you want to get down and dirty, you’re going to do it here, because the music is good. I feel more comfortable that I can probably get weird in this spot because it’s bigger.

CV: I more like the cramped places where I can’t get weird, because then it’s going to get too weird.

Ryan tries his luck

Justin and Sophie air it

out

CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 13

RP: Let the record show that Sophie just pronounced Galaga “Guh-lah-guh.” And there are a lot of banker bros in here, and they’re all wearing the uniform.

CV: The white-person, uptown-Charlotte banker uniform.

RP: There’s a lot of them here, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

CV: But they’re all waiting on Jurassic Park. Everyone in this place is waiting to play Jurassic Park.

Justin and Sophie finally hop into Jurassic Park while Carlos and Ryan play Star Wars: Trilogy next to them RP: I don’t watch Star Wars so I’m not even sure who to shoot at.

CV: Usually a good strategy is to shoot the people who are shooting at you. I usually go with that. All you have to do is say, “I felt my life was threatened,” and that’s the only excuse you need. You say, “Ahhh, they resisted arrest,” and then you just shoot. That’s the way it works.

DV: It’s not really specific as to what you’re supposed to do.

CV: This is the first game where you shoot all the white people [Storm Troopers]. That’s a revolutionary thing. And now we have a Yeti in this bitch. And of course, we have to destroy the mythical creature that we’ve been trying to find for a millennia.

JL: We captured the T-Rex and it was fucking amazing.

DV: Jurassic Park is at least worth coming to Lucky’s for.

JL: This game is the only reason you need to come to Lucky’s.

DV: Yes, Jurassic Park is the shit.

SW: It was pretty awesome. I’m not going to lie.

RP: This is a modern-day arcade, so this is more up your alley than Abari.

SW: Yeah, I like it. This is where I would bring my friends to actually go out, maybe start the night. I feel like we could hang here.

We couldn’t hang at the last place.

After a failed attempt at Recess Charlotte, we decide to head down the street to finish the night playing Mario Kart at Hattie’s

FOURTH STOP: HATTIE’S TAP & TAVERN , 2918 THE PLAZA CV: As long as nobody takes Luigi, you’re all going down.

JL: I don’t care who I got, I’m going to get second place.

CV: Are we playing Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, or what?

CV: Damn, that’s the one I’m weakest at.

RP: That’s the classic.

CV: No, the classic is Super Mario Kart, what the fuck! What are you, 22?

RP: No, I’m 31.

CV: I’m 38 motherfucker, and that’s the classic.

RP: There’s quite a generational gap going on here. What do you think, Sophie?

SW: I didn’t know there was a Mario Kart before Wii. RP: Well you’re about to play the one that’s as old as you, and Carlos is over here saying it’s not classic.

CV: It’s basically the pinball version of Mario Kart.

JL: I just want to say for the record that I never thought I was going to win and I won both races.

RP: What went wrong for you out on the track, Sophie?

SW: The sheer fact that I’ve never played on anything before Wii. JL: That’s not a bad excuse.

SW: I’m going to use it, because it’s true.

JL: Hattie’s is a great place to play games.

RP: Yup, out back they have the mid-sized Jenga. It’s not quite the huge one that could fall on a baby and kill it, but it’s a good size for a picnic table.

SW: I thought the band was great.

SW: I’m very confused. This looks old as hell. I thought it wasn’t Mario Kart. I didn’t think it was real. I didn’t know anybody ever played it this way. But I’ll do my best.

Somebody teach me how to play.

RP: There’s also a ton of board games that are funner to play when there isn’t a band.

CV: I thought we were going to play Super Mario Kart, which is older than this. You guys think this is old school. We should be playing on this motherfucker right here [points at Super Nintendo next to the Nintendo 64].

That’s where we should be playing. But they don’t have Mario Kart for that.

From there, a few members of the team catch an Uber out to Thomas Street Tavern and then Smokey Joe’s in an unsuccessful search for an open ping-pong table while the rest do the smart thing and find rides home. Another successful Boozin’ on a Budget tour in the books.

JL: Yes, if the band wasn’t playing we’d be able to play whatever the fuuuucck we want.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

RP: Mario Kart 64

Justin on the struggle bus

14 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

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G n I l T s WrE CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 15

FRIDAY

3

PANTHERS FAN FEST What: We still can’t get over the bullshit about them actually charging for tickets nowadays, but it’s only five bucks and Fan Fest never fails to be a good time for football fans who have been banging their head against the wall waiting for the season to start.

Featuring performances from the TopCats, Sir Purr, PurrCushion, the Black & Blue Crew and any other punny Panther acts you can think of, this glorified practice will put you in gear for another 16 games of hope and heartbreak.

When: 6 p.m.

Where: Bank of America Stadium, 800 S. Mint St. More: $5. panthers.com

16 | MAR. 17 - MAR. 23, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

FRIDAY

3

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Bettye Lavette SATURDAY PHOTO BY AOIFE DOHERTY

FRIDAY

3

FRIDAY

3

FRIDAY

3

JANET JACKSON

KATHY GRIFFIN

LOVE LANGUAGE

JOEDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

What: “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty.” Six Grammys, two Emmys, nominations for a Golden Globe and an Oscar, and a slew of other awards punctuate Jackson’s amazing career. Jackson dominated the ‘80s and kept going, never settling for living in her brother’s shadow. She stands today as one of the best-selling artists of all time.

For many, she serves as musical inspiration with her ability to create provocative, soulful records while breaking down racial barriers.

What: It was the beheading heard ‘round the world. When Kathy Griffin posed for a picture with a bloody rendering of Donald Trump’s head last year, all the folks who spend their days trying to trigger “snowflakes” on the internet totally melted down themselves.

Not that she needed the publicity, but it certainly worked in her favor, and now the comedian is embarking on a Laugh Your Head Off tour (see what she did there?).

We expect this one probably will sell out before we go to print.

What: Hard to believe it’s been nearly a decade since Love Language’s Stuart McLamb released the band’s self-titled debut sugar rush of lo-fi, ’60s-style drama-pop. Since then, McLamb, whose aesthetic is steeped in the Big Star-inspired Carolina indie-pop tradition that brought us Let’s Active and the dB’s, hasn’t been very prolific. He released two follow-ups, then laid low for some years. Now he’s back with LL’s new Baby Grand, whose first single has more of a ‘70s disco-pop vibe.

What: In its ninth year, the local film festival with the coolest name is moving to a larger venue, allowing more folks to check out 13 shows, none of which run more than 30 minutes, from filmmakers who either live, are from, or have a connection to Charlotte. Films range from Trace, a two-minute mini-doc on the life of an amateur fighter, to T is for Tada, a 20-minute story about three old friends who stumble upon, and eventually decide to rob, an old magician.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. More: $45-125. blumenthalarts.org

When: 10 p.m.

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

When: 8 p.m.

Where: PNC Music Pavilion, 707 Pavilion Blvd.

More: $35 and up. charlottemusicpavilion.com

When: 7 p.m., runs through Aug. 4 Where: PNC Music Pavilion, 707 Pavilion Blvd.

More: $30.50 and up. charlottemusicpavilion.com

Panthers Fan Fest FRIDAY

‘Running Out’ at Joedance Film Fest FRIDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

David Cross MONDAY PHOTO BY MELISSA MELVIN-RODRIGUEZ

SATURDAY

4

SATURDAY

4

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOEDANCE

PHOTO COURTESY OF BLUMENTHAL ARTS

SATURDAY

4

MONDAY

6

TUESDAY

7

BON ODORI FESTIVAL

BETTYE LAVETTE

PATOIS COUNSELORS

DAVID CROSS

POETRY ON THE PATIO

What: The Bon Odori festival celebrates traditional Japanese dancing, tea, food, drum performance, prizes, martial arts and crafts. The event derives from the Obon festival in Japan, a threeday religious event that honors the spirits of ancestors. There are plenty of Bon festivals across the country, but this one, hosted by the Japanese Association and the Japanese Language School in Charlotte, may be the coolest. And if not, it’s definitely the closest.

What: Few veteran singers, save for the late Johnny Cash, have interpreted a wider range of music than the great Bettye LaVette.

The 72-year-old has transformed songs from Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow” to Sinéad O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” into gritty, deeply emotional, blues-based soul. LaVette’s latest is Things Have Changed, an album of Bob Dylan covers on which she sings, “We live in a political world where love ain’t got no place.”

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. More: $32-$38. neighborhoodtheatre.com

What: Boots Riley couldn’t have chosen a better actor than David Cross to portray Lakeith Stanfield’s “white voice” in Sorry To Bother You, but the Cross has been a comedic staple on the scene for decades. Most folks learned about him in Mr. Show with Bob and David, but he hasn’t stopped churning out great characters, not the least of which being Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development.

But he really made his come-up on the stand-up scene, so you’ll want to see him in his essence.

What: Every first Tuesday, Petra’s offers the opportunity for your inner poet to shine. This open-mic night is open to any and all artists, whether you’re a poet, comedian, singer or visual artist. Once the poetry wraps (or raps) up, the night turns into a full-on party with reggae and dancehall music by DJ Phassad.

The event is hosted by JstJah and brought to you by Grannae’s Boyz and Respect Da Mic Poetry Slam.

Come by this Tuesday to get your spoken-word fix.

When: 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Where: Wells Fargo Atrium & Plaza, 301 S. Tryon St. More: Free. tinyurl.com/BonOdoriCLT

What: Having recently dropped their amazing full-length debut Proper Release, Bo White’s Patois Counselors will crank out the tunes from that album — the rat-a-tat attack of “Repeat Offender,” the guitars- and electronics-charged “Making Appointments” and the spine-piercing “Target Not a Comrade” — at the Milestone this week. They’re part of a line-up that also includes a pair of hot upstate New York bands — Nylon Otters and Filthy Gorgeous — as well as Charlotte dream-rockers Glimpses.

When: 9 p.m.

Where: The Milestone, 3400 Tuckaseegee Road.

More: $7. themilestone.club

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Knight Theater, 430 S. Tryon St. More: $33. blumenthalarts.org

When: 7:30-11 p.m.

Where: Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. More: $5. petrasbar.com

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 17 - MAR. 23, 2016 | 17

MUSIC

FEATURE

SIMON SMTHNG/VACATION PAY 10 p.m. Aug. 2 Le Bang @ Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. Free; snugrock.com

HOME AGAIN With wanderlust behind him, Simon Smthng is ready to refine and define Charlotte’s sound

BY MARK KEMP

S

IMON GORDON WAS barely out of his teens when a remix he’d produced while living in Spokane, Washington, bored out of his mind, wound up going viral.

Gordon, whose DJ name is Simon Smthng, had transformed Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s” into an almost life-affirming meditative chant, pitch-shifting the rap part down to a murmured growl and adding a sweet sample of what sounds like the South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing lala-la’s over a breathy, bossa nova-like flute.

It was beautiful — and the internet loved it.

“Sounds even better than the original,” one fan wrote in a comment on the Majestic Casual record label’s popular YouTube page, where Gordon’s remix eventually landed.

“This is so good!,” another wrote. “It puts me in a mellow feel-good mood.”

Gordon wasn’t ready for all the attention, he admits, as he munches on pretzel chips and hummus at a table at the back of Tip Top Daily Market on The Plaza. Wearing an Obey Records T-shirt and MF Doom ballcap, he’s in his element next to the market’s bins full of old vinyl records. This is the spot where Gordon hosts his Repainted Tomorrow series, the regular beat show and live-painting event he curates. The next one will be August 11, but before that, on August 2, Simon Smthng will perform at Snug Harbor’s weekly psychedelicized DJ party Le Bang.

The Rich Boy remix, Gordon says, was just a little something he’d put up in 2012 to grow his Soundcloud profile.

“I was trying to get my name out there and I had spent maybe 30 minutes on this remix and just threw it online, not really thinking anything,” he remembers. “I was just like, ‘Hey, here’s some new music, guys.’”

A Lithuanian collective on Soundcloud, which had supported some of Gordon’s other tracks, posted the Rich Boy remix on its YouTube channel. When the German label Majestic Casual later posted it, too, Gordon’s remix went from a few hundred plays on his personal Soundcloud to a few thousand on the Lithuanian Soundcloud to more than half a million on Majestic Casual.

By the time Gordon returned to Charlotte in 2012, he was on a high. “I was in my early 20s and that was the first big thing that had ever happened to me,” he says. “Truthfully, I wasn’t prepared for it. I’m getting all this attention and people are hitting me up for production, because they see this song getting bigger and bigger, and it was weird 18 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Up in smoke: Simon Smthng is obscured by clouds. for me. Eventually, I’m like, ‘Damn, all these people like this random remix I put out, but what about my other stuff?’”

WHAT ABOUT HIS other stuff? For one

thing, it’s anything but random. Gordon’s most recent Simon Smthng release, titled you will know fear, is part of a trilogy for which he’s currently in the process of recording the third installment, such is life. The music is soothing, warm, emotional and highly experimental The 10-track you will know fear begins suddenly, with a bright piano and bouncing bass line juxtaposed against a vocal loop that feels somewhere between a pop-song chorus and a Gregorian chant, with strings sliced into the mix at strategic moments. The track, “numbness,” then segues from a found

PHOTO BY HNIN NIE

Gordon’s musical trilogy, which also includes you will know fear’s 2017 predecessor here, for now, runs in reverse chronological order and is based on the grieving process he underwent following a grueling divorce He explains: “here, for now is the end — it’s me telling about the actual breakup; you will know fear is the Purgatory period in a relationship, where you know you’re going to break up, but you’re still trying to work things out; and such is life is the beginning of the relationship. So each one is a prequel.”

Though it may seem unconventional to some listeners for a story to be told backwards and through music alone, it’s not only refreshing to be unencumbered by a literal storyline — it’s incredibly moving. Every nuance in Simon Smthng’s mixes evokes a specific emotion, and

“I’M LIKE, ‘DAMN, ALL THESE PEOPLE LIKE THIS RANDOM REMIX I PUT OUT, BUT WHAT ABOUT MY OTHER STUFF?’” SIMON “SMTHNG” GORDON spoken sample at the end into the stuttering smooth-jazz guitar that kick-starts “mirrors,” which is then followed by the spooky, almost Brian Wilson-like melody of “igetnohugs,” ladled over horn sounds, tinkling keys and drums that lope like an irregular heartbeat.

But the high point of you will know fear comes way near the end, in the rubbery acoustic bass and meditative guitar loop of “ascension.”

For that track, Gordon collaborated with artist Hnin Nie on a stunning video featuring Kenyan-American writer and filmmaker Makena Mambo toting a spear and seeming to be searching for herself in a lush, wooded area.

“I had made that track with the concept of feeling release, moving on past previous obstacles,” Gordon says. One of his inspirations for it was the final scene of Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s 2009 film Mother. “I explained that to Hnin and sent her the [film] clip and she wrote the [video] treatment from there.”

when you’ve reached the end of each of his recordings, you feel the weight and the release of each stage of Gordon’s grief.

A few years ago, Gordon released a fourtrack EP called Charlotte Coliseum, whose songs were named for things that are no longer in Charlotte, such as “Freedom Mall,” “Eastland Mall” and “Midtown Square.”

“I didn’t put any information at all about the songs on the album, but I have a friend who writes about music, and he doesn’t even live in Charlotte, but he figured out, ‘Hey, these are places that aren’t in Charlotte anymore,’” Gordon says. “He figured it out just by listening to the music. When people are able pick up on things and be able to relate to them” — he pauses — “well, that’s what it’s all about.”

BORN AND RAISED on the west side of Charlotte, Gordon, 26, played violin and piano when he was a kid, and listened to the

old soul, disco and rock his parents loved. “I didn’t really get into hip-hop at all until late middle school,” he says. “I was 15 and being homeschooled and still doing violin. But I would go to the library and I started getting these books to keep myself entertained.”

Among the books he gravitated to were Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton’s classic Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey and How to DJ (Properly): The Art and Science of Playing Records.

“They go over everything, in terms of how to handle yourself as a DJ,” Gordon says.

“And I learned a lot from them.”

He was obsessed, and his parents noticed it. When his father saw an ad in the Charlotte Observer for the local DJ school With These Hands, he enrolled Simon into the program.

“It was an immediate match for me,” Gordon remembers. “I was getting into a little trouble, so it was the perfect time for a young innercity kid to find something he’s passionate about. And I hit the ground running..”

Within a couple of years, Gordon moved into producing when a friend, who worked with Job Corps, approached him about collaborating on a mixtape. “He had come home to Charlotte for winter break,” Gordon remembers, then pauses and laughs. “He wanted to make a mixtape so — in his words — he could go back and get bitches.”

Gordon and the friend would hop on a bus every day and ride to the Uptown library, where downstairs they could check out a Reason 61-key MIDI controller for two hours at a pop. “I taught myself how to use Reason and put loops together, then we’d go back to my house and use this crappy conference microphone and record into that,” he says. “Eventually, we made a little 14-track mixtape. And it was terrible, it was horrible — but it was a starting point.”

From there, he bought a copy of the digital audio workstation FL Studios, then known as FruityLoops. “I was being homeschooled, so after I finished my school work, I’d spend the rest of my days just making beats — with Jerry Springer in the background.”

The Charlotte hip-hop scene wasn’t as progressive in 2008 as it is today, Gordon says, “especially on the west side, where everybody just wanted to make Guccisounding music. Within a couple of years, he’d found out about Full Sail University in Florida, a school that started out as a recording studio before expanding into a center for the recording arts. Gordon was about to have his mind blown.

He enrolled into Full Sail and immediately learned about artists like Doom, Quasimoto, Madlib and other experimental DJs, producers and emcees associated with the Stones Throw label. “I never heard any of that stuff before I got to college,” he says. “So I started diving into Madlib’s discography, and all his aliases, and Burial, who was a huge influence on me. Those were things I just wasn’t exposed to growing up in Charlotte.”

They look glad: Ruiz (from left), McConomy and Turner.

MUSIC Simon says: He’s about two seconds away from flipping through the soul and bossa nova records at Tip Top on The Plaza.

One of Gordon’s biggest influences is Nujabes, whose music he had heard earlier.

“I got put onto Nujabes when I first started producing, and he had this beat called ‘Peaceland’ that’s like eight minutes long. At that time, anybody making a hip-hop beat that’s eight minutes long is like — I mean, that’s long. But when you listen to it, it’s engaging. It’s just a loop — for eight minutes — but everything he does with that loop over those eight minutes keeps you focused. And that taught me about arrangement.”

After graduating from Full Sail in 2011, Gordon got married and bounced around the country for a few years. “I had lived in Charlotte my whole life. I had never even left my time zone until I went to college,” he says. His wife was in the Air Force, which is what sent the couple to Spokane, where Gordon did his Rich Boy remix. They moved from there back to Charlotte and then to New Jersey, where the marriage began to break down. In the midst of the 2015 split, Gordon moved to Los Angeles because, he says, “I’m a producer!” He laughs. “Seriously, that was always my mindset, especially when I was in school. I was like, ‘I’m gonna get my degree, move to L.A., be part of the industry.’”

He got a place in North Hollywood, started making pilgrimages to all the great record stores, like Amoeba, and explored hipster spots like Low End Theory, the psychedelic/ avant-rap night at the Airliner club. “It was cool being out there, but for the first time, I got to feeling homesick,” Gordon says. “I was seeing the stuff my homies were doing back here in Charlotte, and things were happening in a way that they weren’t happening before.

“I felt like I was missing out,” Gordon says.

“So I came back home.”

BACK IN CHARLOTTE, Gordon continued working on the trilogy he’d begun in Los Angeles. And he hooked up with musicians he’d worked with during a brief pit stop in Charlotte in 2013. That’s when he’d fallen in with a music collective called the Middle Ground Fly High Club, which included singer Autumn Rainwater and rapper JaH-monte

PHOTO BY MARK KEMP

MUSICMAKER

PHOTO BY MARK KEMP

Ogbon. The group had put on an early hiphop show, called Goodstock, at Dupp&Swat in NoDa. “At that point no one had really done anything like that at Dupp&Swat, whereas now it’s kind of expected, it’s the cool place to do things like that,” Gordon says. “So it was nice to be part of that.”

When he eventually returned home for good in 2016, Gordon dove back into that scene, and now he’s producing the follow-up to Rainwater’s 2017 album Leaf. He says the new material sounds very different from that.

“This is no dis of Leaf — and Autumn and I both agree on this — but Leaf was a lot safer than what we’re doing now,” Gordon says.

“The subject matter, the sounds on it — a lot of the production is much harder than what someone might expect from her. But it ties into a lot of the things she’s talking about in the lyrics, things she’s experienced, things she’s been through just being a growing young woman in Charlotte, North Carolina.” The project will be released this fall.

In the meantime, Gordon is also working on tracks for Charlotte R&B singer Dexter Jordan and Mara Robbin, Davidson’s Cuzo Key and Detroit collective The Black Opera. And of course, he’s finishing his own such is life.

Gordon is excited about Charlotte’s music scene, which he says is on the brink of getting national attention. “I felt like a kid in a candy store when I came back here,” he says. “There’s so much going on. It’s awesome seeing Elevator Jay doing what he’s doing. It’s awesome that Lute’s been signed. It’s great here now.”

All Charlotte needs is a bona-fide sound, which Gordon says may finally be happening.

“I feel like we’ve become this really interesting mash-up of that soulful jazzy feeling you get from New York along with the bass-heavy music from Atlanta and Miami.”

After living away from home, Gordon is here to stay. “It’s always been important to me to represent that I’m from the South,” he says.

“Even in the more clearly New York hip-hopinfluenced music I make, I try to add things like 808s, to sort of bring that Southern feel to it. That’s a conscious thing for me.”

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM

GET HAPPY! It Looks Sad. returns with new lineup and new album

BY MARK KEMP

AFTER A FEW years of reorganizing, the

indie-rock outfit It Looks Sad. is back with a new lineup and a debut full-length album, Sky Lake, on the way. Singer, songwriter and guitarist Jimmy Turner formed the band in Charlotte in 2012 and released its self-titled debut EP two years later. Drummer Alex Ruiz arrived soon thereafter, and It Looks Sad. followed up with the fuller-sounding Kaiju EP of 2015. During the interim, the band put out an EP of much mellower demos last year, Lost Songs. With new bassist Matt McConomy now on board, the trio will perform a show at Petra’s on Friday, August 3, along with McConomy’s old band Cuzco. Both outfits will be playing new songs from the albums each is currently working on. We sat down with the members of It Looks Sad. over beers and kombucha on the patio at Common Market to find out what’s up.

Creative Loafing: That set of demos is very different from your earlier stuff.

Will the new album be more emo, like Kaiju, or more chill, like Lost Songs?

Jimmy Turner: I’d say it’s about a 50-50 split between songs that get big and then other songs that are more electronic and have strings and horns and found sounds and stuff like that — almost interlude-y kind of things, you know; video game kind of stuff, just bleeps and things. So that’s going to make it a little different from what people have heard from us before. It flows better as an entire album.

It’s been about four years since we’ve released anything, so we’ve gotten into a lot more stuff since then. We figured, why not kind of show all of that?

Alex Ruiz: Jimmy likes to demo things and send them to me and we’ll mess with it.

And then when we get together, we make something that’s louder, I guess. That’s my job. [laughs] I’m the loud guy. I determine how loud a song’s going to be.

Where did you record the new album?

Turner: Alex and I went to Memphis at the beginning of February and recorded the full-length at Young Avenue Sound. Calvin Lauber, who was Julien Baker’s producer, was our producer, and that was really wonderful.

It was a fun experience. It’d been almost three and a half years since we recorded anything, so it was exciting. We got to use the world’s oldest drum machine on one track.

Ruiz: That was cool.

Turner: And the studio was next to the Memphis Drum Shop, which is the world’s biggest drum shop.

Ruiz: Which was really cool for me. I knew about the shop. I’d seen it on Youtube, so it was pretty exciting to actually go there.

Matt, are you on the record?

McConomy: No, I just joined a month ago, so I’m still learning the songs. I quit Cuzco back in November, for lots of reasons, and I’ve been in flux for a while. I had posted a tweet complaining about the Charlotte Craigslist listings — about how everybody’s just looking for blues cover musicians.

Jimmy hit me up and was like, ‘We need a bass player. Wanna play with us?’ I was like, ‘Hell yeah!’

I understand you’re going to be doing the Hopscotch Fest in Raleigh in September.

Looking forward to it?

Turner: That’s going to be fun, because the lineup is really cool. Liz Phair is playing and Julie Byrne is going to be there, and getting to see Kim Gordon [former Sonic Youth bassist now with Body Head] is going to be great. So yeah, we’re really excited about that.

(It Looks Sad., with Cuzco and Pullover, play at 8 p.m. Aug. 3, at Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave.; $7 cover. Look for new singles from Sky Lake in the next few weeks, followed by the full LP on Tiny Engines Records this fall.)

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 19

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD AUGUST 2 DJ/ELECTRONIC Dende (Salud Cerveceria) DJ Karz (Tin Roof) Le Bang (Snug Harbor)

COUNTRY/FOLK Cranford Hollow (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Greg Adams (Tin Roof) Open Mic with Lisa De Novo (Temple Mojo Growler Shop, Matthews)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Moses Jones & The Dirty Southern Soul (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK Early Ray at Alive After Five! (Rooftop 210) Musicians Open Mic Sign hosted by Ryan Happy Hippie (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) Open Mic at Studio 13 (Studio 13, Cornelius) Black Label Society, Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod (The Fillmore) Chasing Vixen (Tin Roof) Funky Geezer, Clint Roberts, Brandon Berg (Petra’s) Karaoke (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Music Bingo with Dr. Music (Heist Brewery) Nate Randall (RiRa Irish Pub) Placeholder w/ Charmer, Stars Hollow & Jail Socks (Milestone) Scott Mulvahill (Evening Muse) Shana Blake and Friends (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

AUGUST 3 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Munkee (Morehead Tavern) Jazzy Fridays (Freshwaters Restaurant)

COUNTRY/FOLK Folk Soul Revival (Evening Muse) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Electric Relaxation f. DJ Skillz (‘Stache House Bar & Lounge) Janet Jackson: State of the World Tour (PNC Music Pavilion)

DJ/ELECTRONIC 20 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

DJ Blake (Tin Roof) DJ Jgood (RiRa Irish Pub)

POP/ROCK Sounds on the Square: Heather Gillis (Spirit Square) Cities Lie Desolate, Izar Estelle, CW and the Homewreckers, Van Huskins (Oso Skate Park) It Looks Sad, Cuzco, Pullover (Petra’s) The Love Language, Moon Racer, Paint Fumes (Snug Harbor) Natty Boh, The Bauner Chafin Band (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Pink Pots FAREWELL SHOW w/ Joshua Cotterino, Taxing & Blanket Fort (Milestone) Pluto for Planet (RiRa Irish Pub) Prowess (The Underground) Side Hustle and Sugarshine (Tommy’s Pub) Sounds on the Square: Heather Gillis Band (Spirit Square) Stu Larsen and Natsuki Kurai II, Tim Hart (Evening Muse) Tony Eltora (U.S. National Whitewater Center) Trey Lewis (Tin Roof) Wormholes, Iamdynamite (Visulite Theatre)

AUGUST 4 COUNTRY/FOLK Heather Gillis (U.S. National Whitewater Center) TG Sheppard (Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby, Shelby)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Method (RiRa Irish Pub) Off the Wall “Annual Michael Jackson Tribute” feat. DJ Shakim (Petra’s) STR8 House presented by Unified Souls: DJ Marcus, Badala B, Tony Cutlass, DJs SpeedTopia (Speedy & Utopia Jackson) from Baltimore (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) What So Not (World) Tilted DJ Saturdays (Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B A Tribute to the Music of Maxwell and Sade: The Xmen-Evan Brice, CJ Mercer, Chris Kee, CJ Thompson, Brandon Sutton and Ahji Love (McGlohon Theater)

POP/ROCK Summer Concert Series (Blakeney Shopping Center)

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD Big Mamma’s House of Burlesque Presents: Make A Merkin Great Again! (Visulite Theatre) Blue Monday (Tin Roof) Crisis Assistance Ministry Tribute to Fleetwood Mac Show (Evening Muse) Donavon Frankenreiter (The Underground) The Dryes (Midwood Guitar Studio) Frankie Boots (Primal Brewing, Huntersville) Green Fiend w/ Graves Of Gods and Nod (Skylark Social Club) Jay Mathey Band (RiRa Irish Pub) Junco Partner & The Knockoffs, Guttersluts, Ginger Dawn, Malhond, Koala Soup (Keg & Cue) Patois Counselors w/ Nylon Otters, Filthy Gorgeous & Glimpses (Milestone,) Pentatonix with special guests Echosmith and Calum Scott (PNC Music Pavilion) The Relics (Comet Grill) Skipper the Lion, Vicarious (Oso Skate Park)

AUGUST 5 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Clanndarragh (RiRa Irish Pub) Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, Beth Hart Band (Belk Theater) Sunday Blues Bash with James Armstrong (The Rabbit Hole)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Red (Tin Roof) Hazy Sunday - August Edition: Probably Will, DJ Ray (Petra’s) Bone Snugs-N-Harmony: Bryan Pierce (Snug Harbor) More Fyah - Grown & Sexy Vibes (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Akita (The Pizza Peel & Tap Room)

POP/ROCK Counting Crows with special guest Live (PNC Music Pavilion) Lydia, Jared & The Mill, Cherry Pools (Visulite Theatre) Maya Beth Atkins Album Release Party!

(Evening Muse) Metal Church Sunday Service (Milestone) Rage Fest: Attila, Suicide Silence, Volumes, Spite (The Underground) Reason Define w/ Venus Invictus, The

8/3 THE WORMHOLES 8/4 BIG MAMMAS HOUSE OF BURLESQUE + IAMDYNAMITE 8/5 LYDIA+JARED & THE MILL & CHERRY POOLS 8/10Abacab A Tributeto GENESIS 8/17 RED BARCHETTA A Tribute to RUSH REFRESH RECORDS BIRTHDAY SHOWCASE 8/18 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! 8/25featuring JUNIOR ASTRONOMERS& CUZCO 8/24 TREEHOUSE 9/6 FAMILY AND FRIENDS 9/11 JOSEPH 9/19 NOAH GUNDERSEN 9/28 CAAMP 9/30 CASEY JAMES 10/2 MT. JOY10/9WELSHLY ARMS 10/31BUMPIN UGLIES + TROPIDELIC 11/7 WILL HOGE 11/10THE NIGHT GAME 12/15 RUNAWAY GIN

Prodepressants, Messenger Down & The American Maid Band (Milestone) Metal Church Sunday Service (Milestone) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill) Sunday Music Bingo (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern)

party (Petra’s) Ryan Martin, Kenny Brother, Featherpocket (Tommy’s Pub) Uptown Unplugged with The Chassy Trio (Tin Roof)

AUGUST 6

AUGUST 8

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH

COUNTRY/FOLK

Jazz Jam (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

Open Mic (Comet Grill)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

DJ/ELECTRONIC

#MFGD Open Mic (Apostrophe Lounge) Knocturnal w/ Jericho Jackson (Elzhi & Khrysis), Kil Ripkin, King Callis (Snug Harbor)

COUNTRY/FOLK Dem Sedgefield Boys (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK Find Your Muse Open Mic with Israeli underground rock band Relative Claws (Evening Muse) Music Bingo (Tin Roof) Music Trivia (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Open Mic with Lisa De Novo (Legion Brewing)

AUGUST 7 COUNTRY/FOLK Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Eclectic Soul Tuesdays - RnB & Poetry (Apostrophe Lounge) Soulful Tuesdays: DJ ChopstickZ, DJ JTate Beats (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Steel Wheel (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Open Jam with the Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) CHAMPAGNE SUPERCHILLIN’ w/ GASP, Broke Jokes (Snug Harbor) Dreadnought w/ Green Fiend & Rites to Sedition (Milestone) Gordon Lightfoot (Ovens Auditorium) O.A.R. - Just Like Paradise Tour with special guest Matt Nathanson (Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre) Poetry on the Patio & Reggae/Dancehall after

KARAOKE with DJ Alex Smith (Petra’s) BYOV: Bring Your Own Vinyl (Petra’s) Cyclops Bar: Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK 311 & The Offspring (PNC Music Pavilion) August Residency : CHEESUS CRUST w/ Pinky Doodle Poodle, The Business People, Josh Cotterino (Snug Harbor) Caroline Watkins (Tin Roof) Forest Green w/ Silver Age, ModernEverything. & Leith K. Ali (Milestone) Open House & Karaoke (Sylvia Theatre, York) Open Mic (Summit Coffee Co., Davidson) Open Mic (JackBeagle’s) Open Mic & Songwriter Workshop (Petra’s) Steve Everett CD Release and Paul Pfau (Evening Muse, Charlotte) Trivia & Karaoke Wednesdays (Tin Roof)

COMING SOON Griffin House (August 10, Neighborhood Theatre) Ultrafaux (August 30, Evening Muse) Deep Purple & Judas Priest (September 11, PNC Music Pavilion) Alina Baraz (September 14, Fillmore) Alan Jackson (September 15, Spectrum Center) Mt. Joy (October 2, Visulte) Maroon 5 (October 4, Spectrum Center) Chvrches (October 16, Fillmore) Steep Canyon Rangers (November 10, Knight Theater)

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 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 21

ARTS

FEATURE

FORTY WHACKS WITH A DIFFERENT KIND OF AX Actor’s Theatre takes on Lizzie Borden in new rock musical

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

W

HEN WE FIRST learn about the main character in this musical, it’s through an antique schoolyard rhyme: “Lizzie Borden took an axe / She gave her mother 40 whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father 41.” In the real world, back in 1892, Borden was acquitted of the gory double murders that happened at her home in Fall River, Massachusetts. And the actual number of whacks, for Lizzie’s dad and stepmother combined, was less than 30.

Notwithstanding the uncertainty of her guilt — and the poetic license taken in her song — Lizzie remains the legendary prime suspect. But the action hero of a hard-rock musical? Writer and director Tim Maner and songwriter Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer had that idea in 1990. Putting together four songs and staging their experimental rock theater production in SoHo, the duo originally called the confection Lizzie Borden: An American Musical.

Over the next 13 years, the work was retooled, fitfully revived and workshopped.

New songs were tacked on, the skeletal storyline was fleshed out and Alan Stevens Hewitt joined the writing team. As it grew to a full-fledged two-act musical, the title became leaner. And now Lizzie is rockin’ the Queens University campus, transitioning from previews to its official Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte opening this week.

From the musical’s beginnings, Lizzie has always featured four women in the singing roles. Aside from the legendary slayer, there’s Lizzie’s elder sister Emma, nextdoor neighbor Alice Russell and housemaid Bridget Sullivan. Actor’s Theatre is taking it further — presenting an all-female edition. The sextet of instrumental slayers joining the cast onstage at Hadley Theater will be women. Ditto the design team, the choreographer, the music director, the stage manager and the stage director.

Cue actress and Chickspear co-founder Joanna Gerdy, who’s strayed into crass and bloody musicals before, directing Little Shop of Horrors and Bonnie and Clyde. Now, she’s overseeing the slashing score of Lizzie.

“I love the music in this show,” Gerdy gushes. “And what’s not to love? Think 22 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

The cast (from left): Rachel “Shea” Shipley, Natalya Petrova, Kristin Jann-Fischer, Katy Shepherd, Jessica Borgnis, CiCi Kromah and Harley Quinn Heart, Joan Jett, The Runaways, Stevie Nicks … you get the idea! Lizzie runs the gamut from catchy melodic storytelling, to outrageous punk-rock anthems, to evocative ballads.

There are head-banging moments juxtaposed with gut-wrenching stillness. There are lyrics straight out of Macbeth, and in fact, a Weird Sister vibe throughout.”

The schoolyard skip-rope song was all that had ever grabbed Gerdy about Borden when Actor’s Theatre artistic director Chip Decker asked her to take the reins. She was happy to find that the familiar rhyme starts off the evening, setting the creepy tone.

“Lizzie unlocks the doors in the House of Borden, shows us what may have been going on behind them, and we can’t help but feel for this desperate, powerless girl,” Gerdy says.

“Women were living under a harsh Victorian moral code, and Lizzie Borden was likely trapped inside a house hiding even more heinous goings-on. For me, this play gives powerful voice to women in a time when they were often voiceless and powerless.”

The biggest mystery Lizzie will explore, with ever-increasing decibels, isn’t the question of whether this New Englander committed these horrific crimes, but why.

What could have brought so much stress and pressure on poor Lizzie?

“From the moment the audience walks in,” Gerdy says, “they should feel totally creeped out, unsettled, off-balance — that feeling that something bad is already happening, and it’s going to get worse. And when it does, it will rock your face off! As the story intensifies and the patriarchy is smashed, the women are empowered to literally shed the trappings of their Victorian entrapment.”

Actress Katy Shepherd can closely identify

with Lizzie’s feelings of powerlessness. After splashing down sensationally in Charlotte, romping around ImaginOn in the title role of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse for Children’s Theatre, and following that up with more grownup triumphs, Shepherd experienced a nightmarish 2016. Stricken by celiac disease coupled with severe anemia, she underwent surgery five times. Shepherd knows what it means to feel trapped.

“Every day I can walk, let alone perform, is such a gift,” Shepherd says. “American Idiot [with Actor’s Theatre last season] was my first show back with a healthy body, and our wonderful choreographer Tod Kubo even remarked on how my dancing had even improved since our last show together. I feel so present and grateful being healthy, and any role that I play now will have a touch of that.”

Gerdy hadn’t met Shepherd before auditions and had no knowledge of her back story. Knowing where the actress had come from to get where she is now had nothing to do with why Gerdy was impressed. Seeing Shepherd in the moment was enough.

“Katy’s vocal power blew me away,” Gerdy remembers. “At the auditions, I found myself spending a lot of time watching what people were doing when they weren’t singing or performing. And that’s what tipped the scales for me: She was always compelling, even — or perhaps especially — in the moments when she was listening and just being. She made me care about Lizzie and want to watch her, listen to her and root for her. And those eyes.

She can shift from vulnerable to vixen in the blink of an eye — literally.”

That spark manifests itself in the range of emotions Shepherd is called upon to project as Lizzie — not to mention in some pretty

PHOTO BY FENIX FOTOGRAPHY

‘LIZZIE’ August 1-18, times vary; Hadley Theater, 2132 Radcliffe Ave.; atcharlotte.org

insane vocals.

“Every song is one to brace yourself for,” Shepherd warns. “This music delivers in a way I have never experienced before. From abuse, to murder, to seduction, to betrayal — it’s all there. And it all rocks.”

Taking on Lizzie, Shepherd had only three days off in July, and before rehearsing seven days a week until 10 or 11 p.m., she holds down a full-time day job teaching at Children’s Theatre’s summer camp. Gerdy has been keeping track, imagining the extra time Shepherd devotes to learning lines, absorbing the music and refining her portrait of a legend.

What’s more, Gerdy notes, “She has done all of this during her first pregnancy. She’s a force; I’m in awe of her, and am incredibly grateful to have had this opportunity to work with and get to know her.”

So we finally arrive at the question no journalist can shirk when confronting an esteemed actor who has penetrated the deepest recesses of Lizzie Borden’s soul and lived there for more than a month. To put it bluntly: Was Lizzie a lesbian?

“Considering that there are only women in this show,” Shepherd says, “and you’ve always got to have a love story — I’ll let you do the math!”

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

ARTS

FILM

CRUISING FOR KICKS Plus, middle school movie makes the grade

BY MATT BRUNSON

WHEN IT COMES to the Mission: Impossible franchise, there’s the John Woo installment and then there’s all the rest.

That is to say, there’s Mission: Impossible II, the sole bad entry in the series, and then there are the other chapters, all of which have been consistent in delivering highcaliber thrills. This designation includes the sixth and latest, Mission: Impossible — Fallout (*** out of four), and it’s hardly a knock to say it’s not quite as compelling as all the other non-Woo endeavors. It may not ascend to any new heights, but it also won’t send viewers home disappointed.

Tom Cruise has spent this series playing Superman rather than Everyman, but here he takes it a step further: His character of agent Ethan Hunt is now basically God, lording over his domain, bestowing his blessings on the worshipful mortals around him, and remaining indestructible no matter how hard the Satanic emissaries in his midst try to bring him down.

In this entry, Hunt has his hands full trying to retrieve three plutonium cores that were stolen from right under his nose (hey, even God makes mistakes). Negotiations to recover the cores involve releasing master anarchist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, returning from Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation) from imprisonment, a proposition that leaves Hunt queasy.

Also thrown into the mix is special agent August Walker (Henry Cavill), ordered by CIA head Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) to tag along with Hunt and his trusted accomplices Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). Clearly, Walker has a hidden agenda, but Hunt is equally as preoccupied with the reemergence of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), returning to the espionage fold in order to take out Lane.

Folks not familiar with the M:I series will need a scorecard to keep track of the various characters, but then again, would anybody be foolish enough to join an existing franchise for its sixth installation? Just know that Alec Baldwin returns as IMF Secretary Alan Hunley, Jeremy Renner does not return as IMF agent William Brandt and The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby joins the ensemble as ebullient black marketer the White Widow.

Even as far back as Brian De Palma’s original film from 1996, many of the muscular action set-pieces showcased in this series defy belief, and the ones here follow suit. Yet the exhilaration they provide give most of them a free pass — the same can’t always be said for the vehicular chases, and this movie offers back-to-back dashes that eventually prove wearying.

PARAMOUNT

Tom Cruise in ‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout’

Then there’s the case of Cavill — his character, the mysterious August Walker, is intriguing, but he’s such a stiff performer that some of the life is drained from scenes in which he’s required to convey ambiguity.

Ultimately, those are minor quibbles when compared to the energy and exuberance flowing through the majority of the picture.

Don’t expect any crippling fallout to greet the release of Mission: Impossible — Fallout; on the contrary, it’s safe to assume a seventh installment is already making its way to the drawing board. Now whether Cruise will remain in the Hunt remains to be seen.

‘HEREDITARY’ WAS unsettling through

its pervasive atmosphere of dread, while First Reformed was unnerving in its implications involving violence and vindication. For a summer ’18 outing that truly gets under the skin while simultaneously wreaking havoc on our emotions and expectations, there’s Eighth Grade (***1/2 out of four), an impressive indie effort set in that terrifying wasteland known as middle school.

Television and YouTube star Bo Burnham makes an impressive feature-film debut as the writer and director of Eighth Grade (as an actor, he’s appeared in small roles in such films as The Big Sick and Rough Night). Yet the real story here is the knockout central performance by 15-year-old Elsie Fisher — she’s cast as Kayla Day, an introverted student struggling to survive her last week of eighth grade before preparing for high school. Kayla has no friends and no selfesteem (despite posting inspirational videos on YouTube that are viewed by absolutely no one) – what she does have is a severe case of acne, a dependency on social media, and a well-meaning single dad (Josh Hamilton) who annoys rather than inspires her.

Eighth Grade hits upon the usual points we would expect from a film of this nature — mean girls, dreamy boys, and nerds of all stripes — but the movie is stripped of practically all artifice. Photographed in a manner that offers the actors no opportunities for reprieve or retreat, this is a raw and realistic movie, and viewers will be clenching their teeth each time they anticipate the worst for poor, withdrawn Kayla and breathing a sigh of relief every time something fortuitous breaks her way.

And here you thought Avengers: Infinity War was the summer’s ultimate word on edge-ofyour-seat entertainment.

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CLCLT.COM | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | 23

ARTS

ARTSPEAK

OF MARTIAL ARTS AND MONSTERS After stomping Tokyo, local filmmaker plans follow-up

BY PAT MORAN

GODZILLA WAS AWOKEN from its

underwater slumber by nuclear testing. The three-headed monster Gidorah was spawned in outer space. But The Green Giant of Zanzuki owes its existence to Hurricane Irma.

If Irma hadn’t slammed into Savannah, Georgia, and delayed the start of the fall 2017 semester at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Charlotte filmmaker Alex Greenberg’s monster movie might never have gotten made, and Japan might never have been attacked by a massive lizard-plant hybrid.

Greenberg, a 23-year-old film editor for NBC Universal in Charlotte, was heading into his final year at SCAD at the time and developing his senior thesis film. The plan was for the film professors to ask each senior to submit a budget along with production details, Greenberg remembers. Then, instead of every single student making a film, the faculty would choose only a few projects that would actually get made. Irma tossed that carefully laid plan into chaos.

“They didn’t have time to implement it,” Greenberg recalls, “so they just let everyone do whatever they wanted.”

Greenberg decided to make a kaiju — the Japanese giant monster movie genre, which literally translates as “strange beast” — after watching a theatrical screening of Mothra.

In that 1961 film, a giant flying monster terrorizes Japan after an evil nightclub owner kidnaps two tiny princesses from their island paradise.

“I thought, ‘How cool would it be if I copied the concept of this movie, but made my own version?,’” Greenberg remembers.

It turns out that his love of popular Asian cinema isn’t confined to gigantic flying, firebreathing and building-stomping creatures.

He’s currently prepping a new film, a gory martial-arts movie called Fist, that pays homage to the output of Shaw Brothers Studios, a Hong Kong production company that defined and dominated the fist-flying, nunchucks-swinging genre of the 1960s through the ‘70s.

We had a little chat with Greenberg.

Creative Loafing: What is kaiju, and why did you decide to make one?

Greenberg: The kaiju film phenomenon started with Godzilla (Gojira) in 1954, produced by a company called Toho. From that, a bunch of imitations sprang up. There 24 | AUG. 1 - AUG. 7, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Production still form ‘The Green Giant of Zanzuki’- Julia Valdes as Francine, Oliver Chen as Phillip, Director of Photography-Jim Cole

COURTESY OF ALEX GREENBERG

characters were on the expedition with the Russian scientist, because they thought that he was going to use the Eye of Zanzuki for good. In reality the Russian scientist wants to use it to take over the world.

The director with his not-so-jolly green giant

How did you shoot a Japanese-set story in Savannah?

We shot the majority of the film on a soundstage with a green screen. We built a lot of buildings to destroy and a giant hand that holds the actors. The outdoor scenes were shot in an alleyway near one of my friend’s house. It just looked decrepit and we made it look way worse with set design.

Most of the film takes place during the destruction of Japan, while the creature is holding the human actors. The effects are all practical. They’re done in camera with no CGI. The monster is a suit worn by two different actors. We shot the movie on 16mm film because we wanted to capture the grain and feel of Toho movies of the 1960s and ’70s. We overdubbed the audio and transferred it to reel-to-reel so it would sound like those films. The movie is a spoof of Toho’s films, but it’s a loving spoof.

haven’t been many American examples, so I decided to make one. Pacific Rim is the most popular modern-day take on kaiju. I’ve been a fan of the genre since I was 6 years old. I started watching Godzilla movies and they always stayed with me. Whenever I had a chance to see a kaiju movie in theaters I’d jump to it.

How did you make the monster suit?

We had a GoFundMe, and I played a couple of punk-rock shows to help raise money for the movie. I designed the monster suit with my girlfriend Maryssa Pickett. She works at Resident Culture as an artist, and she did an amazing job. Then I gave a shit-ton of money to my friend Heidi Stein who built the suit.

What happens in the The Green Giant of Zanzuki?

The movie is just over 6 minutes long and the plot is this: A Russian scientist and his team have gone to the island of Zanzuki to find a relic called the Eye of Zanzuki, which has given him control of the weather. So the scientist brought the relic back to Japan, and the movie starts with the creature looking for the Eye of Zanzuki in Japan, stomping everything and blowing up everything around him. The giant is a mix between a lizard and a mountain. He has trees and dirt all over him and his feet are made out of tree roots. He looks like a big plant-lizard guy. My two main

After graduation, what brought you to Charlotte?

A lot of my friends moved to Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York. At one point I was planning on moving back to New York where I had interned my freshman year for a company there called Troma. Troma is probably the world’s most successful lowbudget movie company in modern times.

They made Toxic Avenger. They’re totally independent, so they make their own DVDs and Blu-rays in-house. They edit in-house at each other’s houses. It’s very DIY and it’s been going on since the 1980s. I emailed [Troma co-founder] Lloyd Kaufman and he

PHOTO BY MARYSSA PICKETT

Alex Greenberg

PHOTO BY CODY MOORE

said he had work for me but he wouldn’t pay me. I was editing trailers for their older films, which they were putting out on Blu-ray.

Anyway, a lot of my friends were telling me how hard it was in Atlanta and Los Angeles for a film student. I didn’t want to be a production assistant for years. I’m an editor, so I’m willing to edit for people, but I knew that it would take me years to edit things that I wanted to if I went to Atlanta, L.A. or New York. My girlfriend used to live in Winston-Salem and we’d drive through the Carolinas and we found it super inspiring. There’s so much open space in and near Charlotte, and it’s really pretty.

I feel more inspired to shoot my own stuff here and start my own independent film company.

You’ve done an homage to Asian cinema with a kaiju. Now you are working on yet another homage to Asian cinema with Fist, a martial arts movie. What is the draw of Asian popular cinema for you?

It’s the rawness. One of my favorite comic books of all time is Lone Wolf and Cub. That got me into samurai cinema. When I was younger I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I loved the people flying in the air and beating ass. When I went to college I started watching all the Shaw Brothers movies, a lot of the gorier Kung Fu cinema.

I loved [the 1991 film] Riki-Oh, the Story of Ricki. It’s just ridiculous with over-the-top gore. He’s punching holes through people.

It’s really fun.

What is the plot of Fist?

It’s a revenge story. There is an emperor of this small principality in China who has two sons. The emperor gets killed, and the killer frames the murder on one of the brothers.

The story follows the other brother out to avenge his father’s death. He thinks his brother murdered his dad, so he is out to kill him. Right now I’m still writing the script but I’m also scouting locations. In Charlotte there’s a Buddhist temple on Sugar Creek Road I really want to use for a location. It would be awesome to shoot there.

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Cornelius, the 25-minute drive just to go eat and it was beyond worth it. We sat on on my hands and I’ve enjoyed making the the covered patio and partook in two of most of these rare moments — ones that I my favorite items on the menu: Hamachi refer to as #funemployment. I’ve focused on (puffed rice, umi and macadamia nuts), improving my mental mindset and spending avocado, egg and brown butter saltines. If time with my boo. But don’t be fooled, this the words aren’t mouth-watering enough for kitten loves to sleep! you, check out @omgclt_ for pics.

That’s why I appreciated my boyfriend telling me we need to get out more often.

When we finished, it was time for the And to be quite honest, since he said that, next activity: jet skiing! Now I know what I’ve found myself feeling the most motivated you may be thinking, this black girl is I’ve felt in a long time. Recently, I learned defying all the stereotypes. Nope. This was that he’d planned our first dayscursion up the second time I’d gone jet skiing and I north to Davidson! was still just as nervous as I was the first We played roulette with the weather for time. I don’t like water, getting my hair wet, about a week. Who doesn’t want sunshine swimming or water creatures. However, I when you’re driving somewhere new love seeing my boo’s excitement even for the day? Despite our skeptical when he has to deal with my meteorologist friends on the nervousness and anxiety. The news, we managed to settle highlight: him having to pull on a day that ended up my jet ski in close enough being a beautiful day filled for me to touch every time with sunshine. we stopped at an island.

Now let me preface #blackgirlproblems this by saying my After leaving the lake, boyfriend is the ultimate we returned to Davidson planner. He’s the type for a casual driving tour to take time researching of the Davidson College dive bars, restaurants, you campus — a picturesque AERIN SPRUILL name it. He takes notes on experience. It’s peaceful what’s good or bad about all and quiet on a Thursday, not of them and provides a tentative unlike many college campuses in the itinerary. And what’s even better? You summer, but just imagining alum Steph don’t have to worry about him saying we Curry walking to class was enough for me. have to stick to a specific schedule. #blessed Then for the last stop: Kindred. The Believe it or not, we hopped in the car first Charlotte-area restaurant concept from before noon, and even though I wasn’t feeling Joe Kindred (the second being our earlier 100 percent, we were both excited about lunch destination, Hello, Sailor!), Kindred the activities we had planned. We parked is a fine-dining, small-dish destination. The downtown on Main Street and headed to boyfriend had talked about it as a must-go our first stop: Summit Coffee. A quaint little for us for a date night. coffee bar with a splash of hipster, Summit And let me tell you, was he ever right. I makes for a perfect spot to grab a coffee and eat okra sparingly, but theirs was spot on as walk or bring your laptop and work remote far as how it was prepped. Additionally, we for a bit. (I don’t drink coffee but I really ordered melon crudo, scallops and a ravioli wanted to buy a succulent in their logoed dish. (Pro tip: order their house-made pasta coffee mug. #basic) last so you don’t get too full).

After that, we sauntered in and out of By the time we left, I was so sleepy and the eclectic shops on the street before he full I could’ve slept in the booth where we informed me of the first stop on the list: The were eating #uncouth. We hopped in the car Pickled Peach. A “casual hipster ambiance,” for the ride back to Charlotte as the sun was it sounded perfect to me. To our dismay, going down. I couldn’t believe I made it all they were closed for their annual summer day without a nap but “look at God.” vacay. Before the disappointment settled I’m a creature of the night, but I had an in, I weighed the available options within absolute blast on our day trip. I would’ve walking distance and decided we should just hop in the car and drive the short distance enjoyed a revisit to some of the local to one of my newer faves: Hello, Sailor! He breweries I went to a couple years prior when agreed immediately.

I toured Lake Norman, but I had no regrets.

If you haven’t been to the Sailor yet, A day well spent in Davidson.

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CROSSWORD

SUPER-MARKET OPENINGS ACROSS

1 Really hurt 5 Sauce brand 9 A Nixon daughter 15 Hacking it 19 Alan of film 20 “... hear -- drop” 21 Showing on television 22 Move heavily 23 Krispy Kreme treats 25 Campbell’s product 27 “-- vincit amor” 28 Left dreamland 30 Ireland’s -- Lingus 31 China’s Mao -- -tung 32 Aficionado 33 Sorrow 36 Longtime “Family Circus” cartoonist Keane 38 Entertainer Merman 40 Kellogg’s cereal 42 “Pep O Mint” brand 44 Whoop 45 Tall buildings 47 Bowl stats 48 Times to remember 51 HP or Acer products 53 With 72-Down, purring pet that doesn’t go outside 55 River of Aragon 59 Stadium snacks 63 Attach, as a sequin 65 Bull battler 66 Objectivist Ayn 67 Back of a 45 69 Course: Abbr.

70 “Ran” director Kurosawa 71 It’s baked in a tube pan 73 Marine milieu 75 Advent mo.

76 Hoity- -78 Mata -- (Garbo role) 79 Run, as an art exhibit 80 New Jersey borough east of Paramus 82 They’re often pimientostuffed 84 End of a 1/1 song 85 Strip, in a way, as shrimp 88 Some drops on crops 89 Untidy state 90 Extra charge 92 Generational disparity 95 Church part 97 Deep-fried side 101 Trattoria entree 106 “You got it!”

107 Orthodox beginning?

108 19-season Yankee Rivera 109 Succor 110 TGIF’s “I” 111 Fond du --, Wisconsin 113 Big name in drug indexes 114 Chose (to) 116 Ingredient in a Cuban sandwich 120 Supermarket chain only selling items like the 10 featured in this puzzle?

123 Leaning Tower locale 124 Banish 125 Liveliness 126 Ballet wear 127 Director Preminger 128 Potato chips, in London 129 Cuts, as logs 130 “Hold it!”

DOWN

1 Fraud figure Bernard 2 Slugger Roberto 3 “Search me” 4 Wise trio 5 Oversaw 6 Kwik-E-Mart operator 7 1980s brand of jeans 8 Like dirty floors 9 To-do list 10 Fully mature 11 Writer Levin 12 Camel, e.g., for short 13 Gulp down quickly 14 “Permit Me Voyage” author 15 Relevant 16 Joyous 17 Less binding 18 Ford flops 24 Hurry 26 Walk along 29 -- buco (Italian dish) 34 NFL luminary 35 “La -- Vita” 36 Emu or owl 37 In the event that it’s true 39 RCA product 41 Pearl producer 42 SLR’s “L” 43 Treasured violin, in brief 46 #1 hit for the Troggs 48 Spanish political units 49 Breeding colony of penguins 50 Eritrean, e.g.

52 Proud walk 54 Sheriff Taylor’s son

56 Rob (of) 57 Spins 58 Fusing result 60 Ramble on 61 Madcap 62 Get finished 64 Capital of South Korea 67 NFL’s Starr 68 Did slaloms, say 71 Digestion aid 72 See 53-Across 74 Yalta’s peninsula 77 Less young 79 It may hold Holsteins 81 Clear up, as a mirror 82 Slapstick fight missiles 83 “Strawberry Wine” singer Carter 86 Windmill part 87 Kellogg’s cereal 91 Hydroxyl compounds 93 On -- with 94 Settles (on) 96 Parody 97 San Luis -98 Dodo 99 Demand 100 Six- -- (sub shop sandwich) 102 Inventor Tesla 103 Didn’t play in the game 104 Linked with 105 Tallies 108 Bumps into 112 “T.N.T.” rock band 113 No. on a new car’s sticker 115 Paunches 117 -- Tome and Principe 118 Commercial start for Pen 119 Series of Canon cameras 121 Trial concern 122 Jr. officer

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SAVAGE LOVE

DIFFERENCES They don’t have to destroy relationships

BY DAN SAVAGE I’m gay and have been dating a guy for 10 months. He’s great overall, and I would say for the most part we both want it to work out. But I am having a problem with his friends and other lifestyle choices. All of his friends are straight, and almost all of them are women. All of my friends have always been gay men, like me, so I find this strange. I don’t have any problem with women, but I don’t hang out with any women, and neither do most of my friends. He makes dinner plans for us with his straight friends almost every week, and I grin and bear it. They’re always old coworkers, so the whole conversation is them talking about old times or straighty talk about their children. It’s incredibly boring.

He’s met my friends, and he likes some of them but dislikes others. It’s obvious that he is not comfortable relating to gay men, generally speaking. He does not seem knowledgeable about gay history or culture. For example, he strongly dislikes drag queens and never goes to gay bars.

There is one woman in particular he makes dinner for every Friday night.

It’s a standing date that he’s only occasionally been flexible about changing to accommodate plans for the two of us.

Now he’s planning a weeklong vacation with her. When he first mentioned this trip, he asked if I would want to spend a week camping. I said no, because I don’t like camping. He immediately went forward with planning it with her. I’m pretty sure the two of them had already

hatched this plan, and I don’t think he ever really wanted me to go. I think it’s WEIRD to want to go camping for an entire week with some old lady. He does other weird things, too, like belonging to a strange new-age church, which is definitely at odds with my strongly held anti-religious views. He has asked me to attend; I went once, and it made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. The fact that I didn’t like it just turned into a seemingly unsolvable problem between us. He says I’m not being “supportive.” I need some advice on how to get past my intense feelings of aversion to the weirdness. How can I not let our differences completely destroy the relationship?

predict divorce in 90 percent of cases — contempt is the leading predictor of divorce.

“When contempt begins to overwhelm your relationship, you tend to forget entirely your partner’s positive qualities,” he writes in Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. Contempt, Gottman argues, destroys whatever bonds hold a couple together.

You’ve been together only 10 months, HOMO, and you’re not married, but it sounds like contempt has already overwhelmed your relationship. It’s not just that you dislike his friends, you’re contemptuous of them; it’s not just that you don’t share his spiritual beliefs, you’re contemptuous of them; it’s not just that his gayness is expressed in a differentthan-yours-but-stillperfectly-valid way, you’re HOPELESSLY ODD MAN OUT contemptuous of him as a gay man. Because he doesn’t DAN SAVAGE Differences don’t have watch Drag Race or hang out to destroy a relationship. in gay bars. Because he’s got a Differences can actually enhance lot of female friends. Because he’s and help sustain a relationship. But happy to sit and talk with his friends for differences to have that effect, HOMO, about their kids. (There’s nothing “straighty” both partners have to appreciate each about kid conversations. Gay parents take other for their differences. You don’t sound part in those conversations, too. And while appreciative — you sound contemptuous. we’re in this parenthesis: I can’t understand And that’s a problem. why anyone would waste their time actively According to Dr. John Gottman of the disliking drag queens. But being a gay male Gottman Institute (a research institution correlates more strongly with liking dick than dedicated to studying and strengthening it does with liking drag.) marriages and other interpersonal This relationship might work if you were relationships) — who says he can accurately capable of appreciating the areas where

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you two overlap — your shared interests (including your shared interest in each other) — and content to let him go off and enjoy his friends, his new-age church, and his standing Friday-night dinner date. A growing body of research shows that divergent interests + some time away from each other + mutual respect = long-term relationship success.

You’re missing the “mutual respect” part — and where this formula is concerned, HOMO, two out of three ain’t enough.

Here’s how it might look if you could appreciate your differences: You’d do the things you enjoy doing together — like, say, each other — but on Friday nights, he makes dinner for his bestie and you hit the gay bars with your gay friends and catch a drag show.

You would go on vacations together, but once in a while he’d go on vacation with one of his “straighty” friends, and once in a while you’d go on vacation with your gay friends.

On Sundays, he’d go to woo-woo church and you’d sleep in or binge-watch Pose. You’d be happy to let him be him, and he’d be happy to let you be you — and together the two of you would add up to an interesting, harmonious, compelling “we.”

But I honestly don’t think you have it in you.

P.S. I have lots of straight friends, and I’m a parent, and sometimes I talk with other parents about our children, and I rarely go to gay bars, and I haven’t gotten around to watching Pose yet, or the most recent season of Drag Race, for that matter. It’s devastating to learn, after all these years and all those dicks, that I’m terrible at being gay.

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WHERE WE ALL REFUSE TO WEAR SOCKS.

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) There might still be some uncertainty about the decision you made. But a quick check of the facts should reassure you that you’re doing the right thing.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) The tidy Taurean needs to be a little more flexible about accepting some changes to those carefully made plans. You might be pleasantly surprised by what follows.

GEMINI (May 21 to

June 20) Consider stepping away from your concentrated focus on your new project for a bit so you can get some perspective on what you’ve done and where you plan to take it.

CANCER (June 21 to July

22) The understandably angry Crab might not want to accept the reason why someone might have tried to hurt you. But at least you’ll have an insight into why it happened.

LEO (July 23 to August 22)

There might be some facts you still need to know before leaping onto center stage.

Best to move carefully at this time so that you can observe what’s happening around you.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Your wise counsel continues to be needed as that family situation works itself out.

Meanwhile, the decisions you made on your job begin to pay off quite nicely.

SCORPIO (October 23

to November 21) Your job situation brightens thanks to all your hard work. Now, spend some time repairing a personal relationship you might have neglected for too long.

SAGIT TARIUS

(November 22 to December 21) Aspects favor action in the workplace. Line up your facts and show your superiors why you’re the one they’re looking for.

CAPRICORN (December

22 to January 19) Your hard work pays off on the job.

Personal relationships also can benefit from more of your time and attention. Spend the weekend with loved ones.

A Q U A R I U S

(January 20 to February 18) Early feedback on your project might be disappointing.

But don’t be discouraged. Use it to make needed adjustments, then submit it to your superiors again.

VIRGO (August 23 to

September 22) It’s a good time to expand your outlook by getting out and around, whether you do some longrange traveling or just explore the great things to see closer to home.

PISCES (February

19 to March 20) Flattery could lure the otherwise sensible Fish into making an unwise decision. Be careful. All that praise might be an attempt to reel you in before you can learn the facts.

BORN THIS WEEK You have a wonderful sense of who you are. You are a shining example to others, helping them believe in themselves and what they can do.

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