2018 Issue 6 Creative Loafing Charlotte

CLCLT.COM | MARCH 29 - APRIL 4, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 6

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16

A protester at the March 24 “March for Our Lives” event in First Ward Park.

See page 8 for our coverage.

We put out weekly NEWS&CULTURE

8

A MOVEMENT IS BORN Four Charlotte-area students lean in to the gun debate

BY RYAN PITKIN AND ALEXANDRIA SANDS 6 EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARK KEMP 9 CLOSE TO HOME BY RYAN PITKIN AND ALEXANDRIA SANDS 10 THE BLOTTER BY RYAN PITKIN 11 NEWS OF THE WEIRD

12

FOOD&DRINK CONSCIENTIOUS COFFEE Profits are percolating, but are farmers getting a fair deal

16 18

BY PAT MORAN

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

MUSIC DANCE OF THE ROMA Russian guitarist and Charlotte resident Vadim Kolpakov celebrates his invisible culture

BY MARK KEMP 21 ROMA ROCKS! BY MARK KEMP 22 SOUNDBOARD

24

ARTS&ENT BACK ALLEY BLUES The Charlotte Film Society keeps the edge on Charlotte’s silver screens

BY GREY REVELL 25 ARTSPEAK: DAVID BUTLER BY RYAN PITKIN

26

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

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CLCLT.COM | MARCH 29 - APRIL 4, 2018 VOL. 32, NO. 6

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CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 5

NEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

TO BE OR NOT TO BE Russians in America Grapple with their Truths

Account Sales Representative Womack Publishing, is seeking a creative Account Sales Representative for several newspapers in North Carolina to promote and market the business community through our products in print and online. A college degree is preferred but not required.

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Please send your resume to: Ron Cox, Human Resource Manager, P.O. Box 111, 30 N. Main Street, Chatham VA or to rcox@womackpublishing.com

6 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

IT MUST BE TOUGH being Russian in was born in Soviet-era Saratov but came of today’s nutty America. “In the age of Trump, age under Gorbachev and Yeltsin — what it we are America’s Trojan horse, Dr. Jekyll and felt like being Russian in Trump’s America, Mr. Hyde, Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov in he largely dodged the question. “What’s great one person,” the Russian writer Anastasia about living in America,” Kolpakov told me, Edel, author Russia: Putin’s Playground: “is that for the last 50 years at least, there’s Empire, Revolution, and the New Tsar, wrote not the discrimination you get in Eastern on February 16 in The New York Review of Europe, or in Europe in general.”

Kolpakov wasn’t referring to being Books. “If the Russians didn’t exist, it would Russian — he was referring to being Romany. have been a good idea to invent us.”

In the Cold War era, Russians in America The guitarist, who came to the United States were looked upon as suspicious, possibly in 2004, is a virtuoso who plays the music of spies, natives of what Ronald Reagan his Roma birthright. Much more than being constantly reminded us was the “evil empire.” Russian, Kolpakov sees himself as part of We’ve watched this played out in the FX the rich Roma cultural traditions practiced in Romany communities throughout television series The Americans.

Europe and even here, although Then came Mikhail Gorbachev most Americans are unaware of and glasnost and Reagan’s their presence. Here, we see admonition to “tear down words like “Gypsy” in our that wall.” By the 1990s, it literature and pop culture, was cool to be Russian in and we don’t realize it is America. “Marxist slogans an offensive term used to and Brodsky’s poetry denigrate Romany people. coexisted peacefully in Complicating matters, our now-wanted brains,” the term “Gypsy music” Edel wrote. “We embraced is a legitimate description the free world while still of a musical style made remembering how to take

by Romanies. “Gypsy music MARK KEMP apart and reassemble our is not people,” Kolpakov told Kalashnikovs. We were zealous me in this week’s music feature. and grateful, an enemy-turned“Gypsy music became the style. Django friend, the spies who loved you.”

And then came Putin, for whom the Cold [Reinhardt, the French guitarist] was Romany, War never ended. He brought back the old and he developed this new style of jazz, but tricks of spying, interfering in foreign affairs it was Gypsy music, just like ours is Gypsy and wreaking chaos. But here in America, a music. It all comes from the same heritage.”

As for being Russian in Trump’s America, new approach to “diplomacy” was brewing.

In 2015, GOP presidential candidate Donald Kolpakov seemed blasé about it. “Maybe there’s Trump talked of Putin’s great “leadership” hidden discrimination,” he told me in a part of our interview not included in the story, “but in and called the Russian president “brilliant.”

Russians in America weren’t cool anymore general nobody cares if you are Russian.”

However, as for being Romany in today’s — at least not to Americans leery of Trump’s motives. And those were the very same world — well, that’s a different story. Kolpakov Americans who once would have welcomed wants the world, the U.S. and his Charlotte our Russian neighbors. Today, it is the left neighbors to know that Roma culture is rich who has made the Russian in America a and beautiful, that it has contributed depth “convenient enemy,” as Nina Khrushcheva, a and nuance to our music and arts. And he Russian-American professor of international is showing this every day in his own rich affairs at the New School in New York, puts it. and beautiful guitar music, which you can “The category ‘Russian-Americans’ is hear and experience when his VS Guitar Duo largely a misnomer,” Edel wrote in her piece. celebrates International Romany Day with an “Of the roughly 3 million people reported by April 6 concert at Grace on Brevard.

“The truth about Russian-Americans,” the U.S. Census Bureau as Russian-American, less than a third identify as ethnically Russian according to Edel, “is that despite the seeming . . . Many have mixed ethnicities; Russia has commonalities of our initial circumstances, long been a multinational empire. If there we make fundamentally different choices in is one common denominator to this émigré our new environment.”

The choice Vadim Kolpakov has always contingency besides the Russian language, it made, before and after his move to the West, is that most of us came of age in the USSR.” When I asked Charlotte guitarist Vadim is to promote the music and culture of his Kolpakov — a Russian of Roma descent who deeper roots — his Roma roots.

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 7

NEWS

FEATURE

A MOVEMENT IS BORN Four Charlotte-area students lean in to the gun debate

BY RYAN PITKIN AND ALEXANDRIA SANDS

A

FTER SCHOOL on Friday, March 23, on a chilly afternoon, Maddie Syfert stood in the plaza of First Ward Park with about nine other high school students, all young women.

Behind her, 18-year-old William A. Hough High School senior Rosemary Colen stood at a podium, reading a list of school shootings; she recited the name of each school followed by the number of dead students. Elsewhere in the park, children much younger than Syfert and Colen played on a jungle gym, unaware of what the high school students were doing.

Every once in a while, a young child would wander over to the podium and look up at whomever was speaking for a minute or so, then find their way back to their friends.

The high school students at the park that afternoon were holding their last rehearsal, giving speeches to a mostly empty park that within 18 hours would be full of students and allies there to speak out against the proliferation of guns in American culture and the politicians and lobbyists who support them.

Saturday’s March for Our Lives event attracted thousands to Uptown Charlotte, and the students who organized it — most of whom are new to activism — hope to continue advocating throughout the year for stricter gun laws, less political pull from the National Rifle Association and more engagement from young voters.

In late February, Syfert, an 18-year-old senior at Myers Park High School, created a Facebook event page for March for Our Lives Charlotte, in conjunction with hundreds of other events being held throughout the country in the aftermath of the February 14 killing of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Syfert wasn’t sure what would come of her preliminary plan, but knew she had to participate in any local effort to speak up.

The daughter of a lawyer, Syfert said she’s always been strongly opinionated, but has never taken a stand in the way she decided to do in response to this latest massacre.

“I’ve never been the one taking to social media about it or doing anything to be an activist for it, but this march and these students, I couldn’t get it out of my head for days,” Syfert said on Friday. “Then I was like, ‘No one’s making this march for Charlotte, so 8 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Rosemary Colen (with megaphone) addresses the crowd at Saturday’s March for Our Lives. Behind her stand fellow organizers Rebbeca Clarke (second from left), Maddie Syfert (third from left) and Carly Lerner (behind megaphone). what’s stopping me from starting it?’ This is the first time I’ve been really politically active, but I don’t feel like this is a political event anymore; I think it’s more about students coming together.”

And come together they did. Syfert said more than 100 people contacted her with questions and offers to help with the march.

In the end, about 10 students came together to plan Saturday’s event, for which thousands showed up and marched from First Ward Park to Marshall Park.

One of those students was Carly Lerner, an 18-year-old senior at Charlotte Country Day School in south Charlotte. Lerner works as a camp counselor at Camp Ramah Darom in Georgia every summer, and only realized a day or so after the shooting that a number of her campers attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

“I think it’s just so much more close to home because you can picture people you know in those scenarios and it makes you picture yourself in those scenarios,” Lerner said when we met with her two days before the march. “To know that I know people who had to hide in closets — and thankfully no one I knew was one of the 17 — but that they had to go through that, it makes me feel like I could just as easily have been in their position.”

She reached out through the event page, only to find that Syfert was still on her own.

Lerner, who wasn’t originally planning to get involved in a leadership role, offered her help.

“I’m not the type of person who steps up and leads things. I’ve never been involved in student government, I’m not the leader of a

club. I’ve been involved in a ton of things, but I just like to be involved. I don’t like my name to be out there, I don’t like my face to be out there,” Lerner said.

“I do enjoy public speaking and stuff like that, but in terms of being politically active and movements like this, I usually just stay in the crowd and support it in my head.”

After her speech on Saturday, Lerner read the names of each Parkland victim.

While she and Syfert were just getting started in February, Hough students Colen and her partner Jessica Clarke, a 16-year-old junior, were already discussing plans to put together a Charlotte march. They came across Syfert’s Facebook event and immediately reached out and offered their help.

The two had helped organize a successful walkout at their school in Cornelius on March 14, which brought more than 2,000 students out of classes and onto the football field to hear speeches from organizers including Colen, who also worked to help students register to vote, which is a priority for all of Saturday’s march organizers.

Colen, perhaps more than any other organizer, has been active in social justice for much of her high school career. She attended both the 2017 and 2018 Women’s Marches, she runs Hough’s Black Student Union and she has spoken out about various issues on campus since her freshman year, she said.

When we spoke on the Friday before the March for Our Lives, Colen recalled that the walkout was the first time she ever truly felt like her voice was being heard.

PHOTOS BY ALEXANDRIA SANDS

“It felt like it was something that was long coming,” Colen said. “I’ve been active in my school for all four years with social activism and getting the word out there about stuff, and kids, they kind of rolled their eyes or were like, ‘It’s no big deal, what can we do?’ But now it’s something that affects us and now I can get their attention to be like, ‘This is something you should pay attention to. This is something you should care about.’

“Seeing 2,000 students finally come have my back and say, ‘I agree with you. This is what we are doing,’” Colen said. “It felt really good after four years of being kind of ignored.”

Similarly, Lerner said she was surprised to see about 70 percent of her fellow students walk out at Country Day, a private school where students tend to lean further right than at many other Charlotte-area high schools.

For Clarke, the walkout was a way to work up to Saturday’s bigger march. At just 16, Clarke has now addressed thousands of people on multiple occasions over the past month.

Clarke said she’s always been comfortable with public speaking, and now looks forward to building the group’s platform after Saturday’s march.

“Speaking to 2,000 students that walked out at Hough was kind of like a practice for this almost,” she said after rehearsing her speech on Friday. “I got to see how it works and what we could do better, what we should keep the same. I thought it was a good experience.

“This is a good stepping stone, and we know we’re going to get our voices heard by our local representatives, and from there it

NEWS

FEATURE

CLOSE TO HOME A disturbing threat raises alarm at UNC Charlotte

BY RYAN PITKIN AND ALEXANDRIA SANDS

“To know that I know people who had to hide in closets ... makes me feel like I could just as easily have been in their position.”

CARLY LERNER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES ORGANIZER

will only grow,” she said. “So any time we can get our voices heard is a good thing and can only build from here.”

Each of the organizers that Creative Loafing spoke to said they were inspired by survivors of the Parkland shooting who have been in the national news pushing the platform of the March for Our Lives movement.

Syfert said it was by watching the students make the rounds on national news that she became determined not to allow the Parkland shooting to slip from memory like so many tragedies before it.

“Usually school shootings — or mass shootings of any kind, but especially school shootings — they kind of die off after a few days or a week, after all the news is out and everyone knows what happened,” Syfert said.

“But the Parkland students didn’t let that happen. They kept it on the news, they kept getting on CNN, Fox News, even local news just to keep people talking about it, and that really inspired me.”

Colen said she believes the Parkland students have changed the discussion in American politics by not allowing folks to be ignored because of their age. She said she sees this recent march — birthed by the Parkland students and carried out across the country by young people like herself — as just the beginning of a movement that she wants to see grow.

“It shows us that students, if they try, we can get the platform we need, even

if we’re not eligible to vote or eligible to even be in Congress or Senate or run for president,” Colen said. “We can make our own platforms and ideas for ourselves. [The Parkland students] got to talk to all the people and showed the world we have a voice, we are students and we have a purpose. For us as students coming together, even from Charlotte, which isn’t close to Florida at all, it shows we got your backs too, and we’re all coming together as one.”

When we spoke with Syfert on Monday after she had returned to class and resumed the life of a high school senior, she said she was inspired by the “amazing” turnout on Saturday, and it only strengthened her resolve to not let the event be a one-off, but to continue fighting for what she believes in right up to this year’s elections and beyond.

As she reminded us on Friday, the marches must continue because the shootings cannot.

“We can get more attention brought to this and actually create change, because if we have millions of people across the entire world fighting for this, that can make a difference with what bill gets passed, and what law is now law, and who we encourage as our politicians,” she said. “So I think that’s what our message is: that we are taking this extremely seriously. We’re not letting this die off like past mass shootings. This is going to be the last one.”

RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

WHILE HIGH SCHOOL students and gun control advocates were busy in recent weeks organizing a march through Uptown Charlotte, authorities at the city’s largest university were dealing with a threat that only highlighted the need for Saturday’s march.

UNC Charlotte student Matthew Saavedra, 20, was arrested on Tuesday, March 20, after telling a mental health physician in his hometown of King in Forsyth County that he planned to shoot up the school he currently attends — which is UNC Charlotte — once he turns 21.

According to an arrest warrant, Saavedra told his doctor that “he could not wait to buy a gun and shoot the university up.”

Saavedra was charged with making a false report of mass violence on educational property, which means reporting that an act of violence will happen despite knowing that it won’t occur.

UNC Charlotte Police searched Saavedra’s off-campus apartment and found a blueprint of the school from 2016 and an emergency manual that shows evacuation routes in the event of a shooting or other emergency, according to UNC Charlotte Police Chief Jeffrey Baker.

The FBI is currently carrying out forensic analysis on a computer found in Saavedra’s apartment, Baker said.

“We searched his apartment. We found no guns. We found no ammunition. We found nothing related to even him wanting to purchase weapons in his apartment,” Baker said.

Baker said it’s his understanding that Saavedra has been evicted from his apartment and hasn’t returned to Charlotte since his arrest in Forsyth County.

Regardless, the department has stepped up its response training, he said, and has been reaching out to student groups and encouraging them to go through ALICE Training, an active shooter response program.

Caeley Riordan, a junior at UNC Charlotte who attended the Saturday March for Our Lives Charlotte event in Uptown, said she was bothered that police didn’t inform students sooner about any specifics related to the threat.

Students received an email alert about a gun threat on Monday, March 12, but were not informed of any details until eight days later, when Saavedra was arrested.

Riordan said she found out early from a friend on staff at the university, but was disappointed with Baker’s answers during a Facebook Live session he hosted to discuss

PHOTO BY ALEXANDRIA SANDS

A marcher in Uptown Charlotte on March 24.

the threat.

“I was kind of scared, honestly,” Riordan said when asked about the incident. “I was a little mad that the campus police didn’t reveal more information to us at the time, what it was. The faculty found out before we did, so that was kind of concerning. [Chief Baker] did a really good job of avoiding the questions that students had about why we didn’t find out sooner and what they were going to do about it.”

Baker told CL that his department wanted to make sure that Saavedra was “handled properly as a student” and that the full process of the department’s Campus Behavioral Intervention Team was followed.

Keith Maples, president of the UNC Charlotte College Republicans, said he was thankful that Saavedra’s doctor did the right thing and stepped in before Saavedra could act on his desires.

“What we need in this country is a revaluation of the mental health system,” Maples said in an email. “The community around this guy did the right thing, and we should all hope he gets the mental health treatment he needs. Thank God for the doctor who talked to this individual. But, communities like Boward County — school system and police department — did not do the right thing when it came to the kid who shot up [Marjory Stone] Douglas High School.”

Riordan, a political science major, said she was hoping to see more UNC Charlotte students attending Saturday’s march than she did. The newly opened light rail extension created an easy path directly from UNC Charlotte to First Ward Park, where the march was being held, but Riordan was underwhelmed with response at the school.

“None of my classes mentioned it … so it was sort of interesting to not really hear anything about it on campus,” she said. “This morning there was only one other person who got on the train with us who I assumed went here ... I wish our campus was more involved against the gun violence and stuff.”

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 9

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

CATERING An employee of a property

Check CLCLT.com on

March 29 for episode 36 of our podcast, Local Vibes,

featuring LaLa Specific. Also, check out our new squad at

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check out Local Vibes now on spotify!

management company was surprised to find a dinner party in full swing when he went to check out one of his employer’s properties in east Charlotte last week — mainly because there weren’t supposed to be any tenants there. The employee told police that he walked into the apartment on Eastway Drive and saw multiple people inside cooking food. The suspects had been squatting in the apartment after having entered through an unlocked window. They fled the property when they saw the employee, leaving him there alone to enjoy a home-cooked meal.

JUDGEMENT DAY Police responded

to a Walmart on Wilkinson Boulevard in west Charlotte last week after two heathen fraudsters pulled a scam that they will surely have to answer for in the afterlife. The report isn’t entirely clear on how the suspects pulled off the scheme, but police wrote that over a two hour period, the two suspects “pretended to give the victim money for church donations and instead, the stole the victim’s money and provided her with [a] roll of decoy money.” In the end, $3,000 worth of church donations were missing.

GET THE DOUGH A thief that struck at a sandwich shop in north Charlotte last week had more of a sweet tooth than an itchy palm, apparently. According to the responding officers’ report, a suspect threw a brick through the window of a Subway on Sunset Road at some point overnight, but didn’t go after the cash register. Instead, the thief went for the cookies, making off with $8 worth of snacks in the heist.

GIFTED A Lancaster, South Carolina, woman was willing to do anything it took to get back to her apps last week when her phone froze up and her password was lost. The woman later told police in Charlotte that she was attempting to have the password reset on her Apple iPhone, so she called someone she thought could help and was told she would have to buy $500 worth of Apple gift cards to get a new password. She did so at a Family Dollar in east Charlotte, then called in the numbers to the suspect. She later told officers she realized she was scammed when the suspects failed to give her a password.

UNGIFTED Another woman was thankfully

stopped by a knowing cashier when someone tried to pull a similar scam on her in Uptown last week. The woman told police someone emailed her claiming to be the CEO of Caesarstone, a countertop company in Charlotte, saying he needed her to buy iTunes gift cards for their clients. When she went to a local Target and attempted to buy the cards, a helpful cashier told her there had been many scams involving similar emails, so the

10 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

customer called Caesarstone and was told the CEO would not have made any such requests of anyone.

KEEP WALKING A man was arrested

for shoplifting last week after he broke the golden rule of criminal activity: Never return to the scene of the crime. Police responded to a Circle K convenience store in the Fourth Ward after a man allegedly picked up a premade sandwich and left the store with it.

While police were talking to employees, the same suspect walked right back into the store as if nothing were wrong, apparently looking for something to wash the sandwich down.

RUDE AWAKENING A 20-year-old man’s

relaxing situation quickly turned quite the opposite in west Charlotte last week. The man told police he was simply sitting in his home at 8:30 a.m. when a suspect “entered into the residence and proceeded to spray a chemical agent in his face.” That’s a quick way to ruin breakfast.

REFUEL Police responded to a Speedway

convenience store on North Tryon Street last week after someone hauled off a display rack during one of the busiest times of day.

According to the report, a suspect walked in at 6 p.m. and snatched up a rack holding 150 lighters and 12 5-hour Energy shots then ran out the door. And he probably didn’t stop running again for another 60 hours.

NEED A LIFT A 20-year-old man called

police after his kindness was taken for weakness on the side of the freeway in northeast Charlotte last week. The victim told police he was driving on the outer loop of I-485 near University City when he saw a man walking down the side of the interstate.

The victim pulled over and asked the man if he needed any assistance, at which the walking man pulled out a gun and said no, but he could certainly use a car. The suspect drove off with the victim’s Honda Accord, and just like that, they switched roles. The victim walked to a nearby QT gas station and called police.

DOGTAGS A 70-year-old man was upset to

only find the remnants of a bag he believes was stolen at Charlotte Douglas International Airport last week. The man reported that he was standing at the luggage carousel awaiting his bags so he could return to his west Charlotte home, but realized the odds were against him when the handle for his suitcase came around the carousel, followed later by the bag tag. Perhaps if he stands there long enough he’ll end up being able to put the whole suitcase back together.

All stories are pulled from police reports at CMPD headquarters. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

NEWS

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

ACTING OUT Wait times at emergency rooms are notoriously long, and Danny Konieczny’s experience was no different on March 6 at The Villages Hospital in The Villages, Florida. The Lady Lake resident, 61, was at home earlier in the day when a neighbor called 911 to report Konieczny was drunk and suicidal. According to WOFL TV, first responders took him to the hospital, where he waited for two hours to see a doctor before getting exasperated and stealing an ambulance to drive home.

Konieczny parked the ambulance in the driveway of the neighbor he thought had called the police about him, and when Lake County Sheriff’s investigators tracked him down, they found Konieczny curled up in the trunk of his own car in his garage. Konieczny was put on no-bond status because he is still on probation from a 2017 drunk driving charge.

AN ESCALATING SITUATION Things went from bad to worse for 30-year-old Isaac Bonsu on March 6 when he was charged in Alexandria, Virginia, with felony hit-and-run involving an unlikely victim. Fairfax County Police pulled Bonsu over for an equipment violation, but he apparently forgot to put it in “park” before exiting the vehicle. Bonsu can be seen on police dashcam video running in front of the car and then being struck by it. Unhurt, Bonsu jumped up and kept running, but police were able to catch him.

The Associated Press reported that Bonsu was charged with driving while intoxicated (his third) and possessing marijuana along with the hit-and-run.

BACK IN TIME Environmentalists decry all the debris washing up on beaches around the world, but a discovery in January near Perth, Australia, has historians thrilled. The Washington Post reported that Tonya Illman and a friend were walking along the beach when she spotted “a lovely old bottle.” Inside was a damp note, tied with string. “We took it home and dried it out ... and it was a printed form, in German, with very faint German handwriting on it,” she said. Experts at the Western Australia Museum have determined the note was 132 years old — 24 years older than the previous record for a message in a bottle. The note was dated June 12, 1886, from a ship named Paula.

Further study revealed that a German Naval Observatory program was analyzing global ocean currents in the area between 1864 and 1933, and an entry in the Paula’s captain’s journal made note of the bottle being tossed overboard. Thousands of other bottles were released into the sea as part of the program, and only 662 have been returned. The last one discovered was in January 1934.

EMAIL IN A BOTTLE It may not be the oldest ever found, but the message in a

bottle found by 12-year-old Joseph Vallis of Sandys Parish, Bermuda, certainly traveled an impressive distance — more than 1,000 miles. The Royal Gazette reported that Vallis and his Warwick Academy class were picking up trash around Bailey’s Bay on March 10 when he came across a green bottle with a plastic bag inside. He and his father, Boyd, uncorked the bottle and found a note dated April 2014 that had been set adrift from a French sailing yacht crossing the Atlantic. The note included an email address and invitation to contact the authors, but as of press time, the Vallises were still awaiting a response.

TOOT YOUR OWN HORN March 3 was a

THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES Kayaker Sue Spector, 77, was out for a leisurely paddle on the Braden River in Florida with her husband and friends on March 4 when someone remarked, “Oh look, there’s an otter.” No sooner had the words been spoken than the mammal with a playful reputation jumped onto Spector in her kayak and began clawing and scratching her arms, nose and ear.

“He wouldn’t let go and I kept screaming.

I kept beating him with a paddle,” Spector told FOX13 News. She later required stitches, antibiotics and rabies treatment. It was the second otter attack in two days, and Florida Fish and Wildlife has now posted signs about the “aggressive otter” near the area.

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINAL On March 12 in Northumberland, England, a car thief making a getaway in a Mini Cooper S discovered the small car was not small enough to navigate a narrow stone staircase in Carlisle Park. Northumbria police were called to the park around 11:30 p.m. where they found the car and its unnamed 31-year-old driver both wedged tightly between the staircase walls.

Area residents speculated to Metro News that the driver might have been trying to re-enact a scene from “The Italian Job,” a 1969 movie.

“I’m sure the older Minis would have got down no problem,” said Chris Stoker.

THE LITIGIOUS SOCIETY Neldin Molina

of Denver is dragging Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Tampa, Florida, to court with a $1.5 million lawsuit alleging she was injured there by a drag queen’s breasts. According to WESH TV, Molina was visiting the restaurant in May 2015 with friends and family when a drag show began. Molina said drag queen Amanda D’Hod pointed at her and began to approach her, but Molina turned her back to signal she didn’t want to participate in the show. The suit, filed in early March, alleges that D’Hod then walked in front of Molina, grabbed her head and shook it, pounding it violently against the performer’s fake breasts. The complaint said Molina began to experience headaches and neck pain and later went to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital of Tampa. The lawsuit also notes the restaurant failed to notify patrons of possible danger from the drag show.

OLD MEAL The Carelse family of Lakewood,

Colorado, picked up some groceries at the Walmart in Littleton on March 5, including a box of Quaker 100 Percent Natural Granola with oats, honey and raisins. When they sat down for breakfast the next morning, they told KMGH TV, Anthea Carelse noticed that the “best by” date on the box was Feb. 22, 1997 — more than 21 years ago. Her husband, Josiah, ate his full bowl and didn’t suffer any unpleasant consequences, but Anthea stopped after two bites. Josiah planned to return the box to Walmart.

big day in Key West, Florida, as competitors sounded off in the 56th Annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest. For 70-year-old Mary Lou Smith of Panama City Beach, winning the women’s division was topped only by a marriage proposal (which she accepted with a hearty honk from her shell) from fellow competitor Rick Race, 73, also of Panama City Beach. The Guardian reports that the large shells were used in the 19th century by seafarers as signaling devices, and dozens of entrants show off their skills each year at Key West’s Oldest House Museum.

WAIT, WHAT? An unnamed Russian woman stunned tourists and onlookers March 10 when she walked into the Red Sea and, with the help of a doctor and her partner, gave birth. From the balcony of her uncle’s apartment in Dahab, Egypt, Hadia Hosny El Said photographed the events, as the doctor carried the newborn and its father walked alongside with the still-attached placenta in a plastic bowl. After a few minutes, the mother emerged from the sea to join her family, including a toddler, on the beach. El Said told The Daily Mail the doctor is Russian and specializes in water births.

LAST CHAPTER Houston detectives

were finally able to close a case in January that had been vexing them for 30 months.

Mary Stewart Cerruti, 61, the last holdout in a neighborhood being bought up for redevelopment, was reported missing in August 2015 by a friend, who described her as shy and frail, the Houston Chronicle detailed.

However, police had no leads, and her home was foreclosed on after payments stopped.

Eventually, the home was cleaned out and sold, and new renters moved in. On March 4, 2017, a 911 call reported a human skeleton “between two of the walls” in the home. When police arrived, they found a hole in the attic floorboards and down below were the bones, clothing and shoes that had been discovered’ an investigation found no evidence of foul play. On Jan. 23, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed the remains were those of Cerruti.

your delicious weekly alternative news source

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CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 11

FOOD

COVERSTORY

CONSCIENTIOUS COFFEE Profits are percolating, but are farmers getting a fair deal?

BY PAT MORAN

W

“OULD YOU LIKE A CUP of coffee?”

It seemed a simple enough question when Matt Hohler posed it at Mecklenburg Market on a recent Saturday afternoon, so I said yes to a sample of robust earthy brew with a slightly bitter bite. It’s when I asked Hohler about his business that the gateway opened to the specialty coffee rabbit hole — a world where roasters, regulators, cafes, laboratories and festival organizers strive for two goals: Bringing the consumer a quality cup of coffee, and making sure that as much money as possible finds its way into the farmer’s pocket. Creative Loafing discovered that no two participants in the local coffee business follow the same path to quality and fairness.

Hohler and his partner Robert Durrette’s commitment to fair treatment for coffee growers is reflected in the name of their company — Farmers First. The Charlottebased coffee company and roaster trades in specialty coffees from Peru. A specialty coffee is a product graded 80 points or above on a 100-point scale by a taster or grader certified by the Specialty Coffee Association of America, a non-profit trade organization founded in 1982. Consumers pay a premium for specialty coffees, which strive to trace their beans back to a specific microclimate. In contrast, commodity coffee, which comprises less expensive commercial brands like Maxwell House of Folgers, can be sourced from a variety of growing locations.

In 2012, Hohler, who holds a Master’s of Public Health Promotion and Education from the University of Toledo in Ohio, was teaching English in Honduras. Coffee plantations and the farmers who worked them surrounded him.

“What it takes to bring a cup of coffee to the consumer is mind-blowing,” Hohler says. He saw a disconnect between the hard work and expertise farmers bring to growing, harvesting and drying their crops and how little they were paid. “Most coffee farmers make less than $2,000 per year,” Hohler adds.

At the same time, Hohler met Durrette, owner of the D&D Eco-Lodge in Honduras.

Like Hohler, Durrette has also forged friendships with coffee growers and pickers, and he shared Hohler’s views on economic inequality in the coffee business. In the summer of 2016, they launched the Levanta Coffee Company. The name, which Hohler says is Spanish for lift up and wake up, proved problematic.

12 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY NAHUN RODRIGUEZ

Ripened Peruvian coffee beans “We realized we were spending too much time explaining the name,” Hohler remembers.

Last September they changed the name to Farmers First to sharpen their message, namely their belief that consumers want true transparency behind the products they buy, and that they want to know their money is making a real difference, Hohler says. Fresh out of the gate, the upstart company forged relationships with three Peruvian farmers — Daniel Diaz in the San Martin region, Rosa Lloclla in the Cajamarca region and Emiliano Vilchez in Amazonas. With those three initial producing partners, Farmers First decided to focus on what they call “social microlots,” a phrase they coined.

“In coffee parlance, a microlot means that the coffee comes from this one specific farmer — this one producer, on this specific plot of land,” Hohler explains.

Social microlot emphasizes Farmers First’s socio-economic priorities, a commitment to creating opportunities for their three farming partners to thrive and invest so they could become higher-priced coffee producers in the future, he says. In another break with tradition, Farmers First decided not to apply for fair trade certification.

MOST CONSUMERS HAVE SEEN fair trade products in the grocery store, and are aware that fair trade-certified products help secure a better deal for farmers and workers around the world. Fair trade principals and guidelines are administrated and regulated by several non-profit organizations. One of the largest is Fairtrade America.

“The fair trade movement started in 1988, with the first fair trade coffee coming from Mexico,” says Fairtrade America’s media manager Kyle Freund. “Fair trade continued to grow from there because it asked consumers, ‘What are you supporting when you buy?’”

Speaking by phone from his office in Madison, Wisconsin, Freund outlines the key features of fair trade agreements with producers.

“We’re the only certification system that guarantees a minimum price. If you were buying certified fair trade coffee, you have to pay at least that minimum price, which is $1.40 per pound,” Freund explains. “The other mechanism we have is the fair trade premium. For coffee, that’s an extra 20 cents for each pound of coffee.”

Freund stresses that the $1.40 floor price is merely a lower limit, and that certified producers are free to negotiate for a higher

price. Certified producers have a safety net, Freund continues. They’re paid a set price regardless of market volatility, which could wipe out a small-scale producer. At the same time, the consumer receives a clear signal from the fair trade logo on products in the supermarket. Freund cites Fairtrade America’s research that indicates that 55 percent of Americans trust the fair trade label, specifically the green, black and blue label of Fairtrade America.

“It gives consumers a shortcut,” he says.

“We in the industry have done a good job of training consumers to recognize and understand those labels,” says Counter Culture Coffee’s Meredith Taylor. “The average consumer buys coffee at their grocery store along with 25 other things, so they don’t have time to research what kind of coffee is best for sustainability.” When the fair trade label arose, it clarified a coffee marketplace cluttered with certifications including organic certification and Rainforest Alliance certification, Taylor says.

“No one certification covers everything,” Taylor continues. “For example, organic is great if you’re concerned about environmental sustainability. It’s the same with the Rainforest Alliance. However, neither of those

certifications addresses the social conditions or the economic sustainability of growing and selling coffee. Fair trade came in and filled that gap on the social side of things.”

That said, after going the fair trade route since their inception in 1995, Counter Culture, a Durham-based roaster and coffeeeducation enterprise, stopped buying fair trade certified coffee in 2009.

“We saw a real disconnect, in that fair trade doesn’t tie the quality of the coffee to the price of the coffee,” Taylor says.

High quality coffee takes a lot more labor, materials and time, she adds.

Counter Culture is part of a growing group of companies turning to direct-trade agreements with producers. A key concern for them is that that fair trade-certified coffee is not living up to its chief promise to reduce poverty. Certifications such as organic or fair trade say little about the quality of the coffee or the quality of the lives of the people who have been growing that coffee, says Diana Mnatsakanyan-Sapp.

Mnatsakanyan-Sapp is the director of operations for Undercurrent Coffee, a café and coffee education lab slated to open in Plaza Midwood in May. The lab component of Undercurrent facilitates Specialty Coffee Association of America-approved educational PHOTO BY ELLI MCGUIRE pathways for coffee professionals, including Undercurrent’s Diana Mnatsakanyan-Sapp classes for baristas, brewers and more. In addition, she cofounded the inaugural POUR specialty coffee market between fair trade Coffee Festival held in Charlotte earlier this and direct trade, particularly when direct month. Counter Culture participated in the traders follow fair-trade guidelines and work weekend-long event, which celebrated the with fair-trade certified cooperatives. For Southeast’s growing specialty coffee culture. their part, each of Farmers First’s farming Mnatsakanyan-Sapp maintains that fair partners belongs to a local fair tradetrade organizations like Fairtrade America certified co-op, Hohler says. In addition to fail to address the entire high-quality crop Farmers First’s payout to farmers like Diaz, that specialty roasters pursue and purchase. the company also pays an additional 50 That situation has led to the development of cents a pound to each co-op to cover the direct-trade agreements, she says. fees the co-ops pay for fair trade and organic “Roasters now go to the crop’s origin certifications. to work alongside farmers,” MnatsakanyanBut differentiating a direct-trade payout Sapp says. “They negotiate contracts and to an individual farmer from a fair-trade enter into deals directly with the farmers.” payout to a farming co-op is an apples-toThe desired result is that much more of the oranges comparison, Freund says. Fair trade profit from specialty coffee sales ends up focuses on collective organization as much as going to the grower, she says. price, he maintains.

The goal of getting more money to the “It’s about the power dynamic,” Freund farmer is precisely what motivated Hohler to says. “That’s why we work with cooperatives form Farmers First. and farmers organized into those On its website, Hohler and Durrette’s associations.” company posts impact and transparency Farmers are increasingly dealing with reports for each of its farmer/partners. bigger trading houses with much more In the case of Daniel Diaz, Farmers First complicated business firms, Freund paid him a $1.38 gate price per pound of continues. By organizing together as a green coffee in 2017. In addition, it paid a co-op, the farmers can be more effective 50-percent bonus per pound directly to Diaz, negotiators. which comes to roughly 75 cents per pound.

“With co-ops there is a potential for Hohler contrasts that with fair trade floor farmers to come together and find access to prices, which come to $1.40 per pound plus larger markets,” Freund says, and although a 20-cent bonus, which goes to a farming profits go to the co-op as a whole rather than cooperative, and not to individual farmers. individuals, co-ops are democratically elected Fairtrade America’s Freund has no organizations designed to make decisions problem with direct-trade deals like Farmers benefitting their entire communities.

First’s agreement with Diaz and their other “It’s like having a successful company partners. He compares it to Counter Culture’s in the community,” Freund says. “It goes pioneering direct-trade partnerships which beyond benefitting just one person.” began in 2009.

“What we’re seeing there is what we HOW MUCH FARMERS BENEFIT from strive for in fair trade relationships,” Freund the coffee business, whether through fair says. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, trade or direct trade, is hotly debated. A big where the farmers are treated as if they were selling point for fair trade certification is that partners. They’re part of the company vs. it’s subject to third-party verification. It’s a just being a supplier.” claim that companies involved in direct trade Freund sees a lot of overlap in the

PHOTO COURTESY OF COUNTER CULTURE COFFEE

Coffee drying on a Burundi hillside PHOTO BY PAULIUS MUSTEIKIS

Fairtrade America’s Kyle Freund cannot make. The Fairtrade label on a product means it’s been independently checked

by FLOCERT, an independent certifier.

FLOCERT has suspended and decertified fair trade producers who fail to comply with standards. But many coffee companies have concerns about the transparency of that verification process. “If you go to a fair trade website, you’ll be amazed at how little they reveal,” Hohler says.

“Transparency cannot be 100-percent confirmed by third party outside verification,” Taylor maintains. In part, difficulties in pinning down the specifics of the verification process are due to all the hands involved in the coffee supply chain — buyers, importers, CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 13

Peruvian coffee farmer Rosa Lloclla

PHOTO BY NAHUN RODRIGUEZ PHOTO BY NAHUN RODRIGUEZ

Matt Hohler of Farmers First Coffee

“WHAT IT TAKES TO BRING A CUP OF COFFEE TO THE CONSUMER IS MIND-BLOWING.” MATT HOHLER

Drying the coffee beans exporters and roasters. Even the fair trademandated floor price of $1.40 a pound is open to debate. “Who knows if people actually pay that price, or if they pay more?” Taylor asks.

“There are zero requirements to disclose that.”

When Counter Culture Coffee began to transition away from fair-trade certification, it started publishing a transparency report, Taylor says. The report states what the company bought, who it bought from and what the company paid. But even that picture is incomplete.

“When we pay a cooperative, we don’t know how much the cooperative is paying the individual farmer,” Taylor says. “Up to this point there have been a lot of people working in silence.”

Counter Culture has been policing its supply chain, severing ties with importers and 14 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

PHOTO BY NAHUN RODRIGUEZ

exporters unwilling to provide transparency, Taylor says For the coffee consumer, it all comes down to who you trust, says Mnatsakanyan-Sapp.

Despite fair trade’s attempt to simplify the certification picture for consumers, shoppers still have to do the work, she says. Consumers have to educate themselves about what the certification labels mean, and then they need to hold the roasters they’re purchasing from accountable.

“Just because someone is a local roaster it doesn’t mean they’re doing the right thing,” Mnatsakanyan-Sapp says. “It just means they’re in close proximity to where you live.”

For its part, Undercurrent partners with Arkansas-based roaster Onyx Coffee Lab, a business Mnatsakanyan-Sapp praises for its transparency.

“They post on their website how much they paid for coffee, what fair trade minimums are for that coffee and that region, and how they invested in the various producers that they work with.”

That said, there is no third party verification for Onyx’s claims, and Mnatsakanyan-Sapp believes the onus for determining fairness for coffee growers begins at the grass-roots level. If consumers demand that roasters are held accountable, she maintains, then the roasters will either do the right thing or weed themselves out of the supply chain.

“Typically, things don’t change for the better from the top down,” MnatsakanyanSapp continues, “but if you start by tending to your corner, it will create ripples outward.”

Similarly, Hohler focuses on his piece

of the puzzle — three mountainous and geographically separated regions of Peru.

When questioned about Farmers First’s lack of third-party verification, he counters with company transparency and impact reports, and the stories of his onsite partners — Daniel, Rosa and Emiliano.

“We have proof that we’re improving people’s lives,” Hohler says. “We have this connection, these relationships and these stories, which we’re willing to share.”

Emiliano Vilchez’s story is one of perseverance and hard work. He hails from the village of Otuccho, 4,100 feet above sea level, Hohler says, where he struggles with the effects of climate change on his crop.

(The Specialty Coffee Association of America recently published a report that predicted that areas currently suitable for coffee production

FOOD

COVERSTORY

PHOTO COURTESY OF COUNTER CULTURE COFFEE

Counter Culture’s Meredith Taylor would be reduced by 50 percent by 2050.)

The proudest moment of Vilchez’s life was when his daughter was named valedictorian of her high school. He harbored hopes that she would be the first person in her family to go to college.

“There was no way she’d be able to do that,” Hohler says. “But with the bonus we’re paying, Emiliano was able to take out a loan to pay for her education. He also plans to invest in his farm and pay his pickers more.”

Rosa Lloclla, a 42-year old widow with a daughter and two sons, has two children attending college but no electricity in her home, Hohler says. After Farmers First purchased 3,042 pounds of her 5,070-pound crop of green coffee beans and paid her the bonus, Lloclla’s annual income increased 79 percent.

“Rosa and her sons bought 2,000 new plants, which has increased their farm size by 25 percent,” Hohler says. “They’re also

PHOTO BY NAHUN RODRIGUEZ

Rosa Lloclla and son Nolberto building a solar dryer in order to make their exceptional coffee even better.”

The most inspiring story may be Daniel Diaz’s, Hohler maintains. “He’s a leader of his small community Creacion 2000, which he co-founded 18 years ago,” Hohler says.

“There’s a wild mountainous road to the village, and Daniel is one of only three people with a truck.” The community depends on Diaz to get up and down the mountain, and to transport its coffee to market. The situation

looked dire last year when Diaz’s truck broke down because he didn’t have enough money to repair it. The bonus paid by Farmers First boosted Diaz’s income 61 percent, and it came in the nick time.

“He was able to keep on going, and continue to take care of his community,” Hohler says. “75 or 80 cents per pound doesn’t seem like much to you or me, but I’ve seen it have a dramatic impact on people’s lives.”

PMORAN@CLCLT.COM

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k n a h T You! CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 15

THURSDAY

29

THURSDAY

29

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN

Walter Samas-Humara SUNDAY

PHOTO COURTESY OF WALTER SAMAS-HUMARA

FRIDAY

30

SATURDAY

31

SATURDAY

31

CIGARETTES AFTER SEX

BIG K.R.I.T.

TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY

KEVIN HART

What: Claude Coleman, Jr., known as the drummer behind the tooweird-to-just-be-called-alternative band Ween, brings the reggae project that he fronts, Amandla, to The Milestone to headline a crowded bill. Also playing that night: Charlotte indie rap darlings Bless These Sounds Under the City along with one-man electronica band The Emotron and the Dinner Rabbits, which includes members of Baleen and local rockers Hectorina. That’s three shows in one, so find something you like.

What: They have the most incongruous name since My Bloody Valentine, and it makes sense: Cigarettes After Sex’s music is in the same ethereal vein as MBV’s, though without the bent melodies and scorching bursts of white noise. That’s because CAS draws from the same musical well that began with Cocteau Twins and continued with every other dreampop act that followed. Greg Gonzalez’s melancholic vocals over Cigarettes’ gentle melodies drive songs like the gorgeous “K.”

What: A year after his departure from Def Jam Recordings in 2016, Big K.R.I.T. dropped his third studio album, 4eva is a Mighty Long Time.

The double-sided disc features two personas, starting with Big K.R.I.T., who’s all about spitting bold rhymes over bass-heavy beats.

However, his Justin Scott persona comes out on the second side, where the album takes a soulful turn. On these tracks, he hits topics like faith, depression, anxiety and alcoholism. Both guys will be at The Underground on Friday.

What: Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to mourn and raise awareness about violence against the community. Nine years ago, the community decided to create another observance that shined some positivity on the trans population. TDOV is a day to brush off mistruths and vitriol to honor what trans folks have achieved.

Free Range Brewing will screen Becoming More Visible, which follows four young people through their transition.

What: In a weekend of hard-hitting comedians visiting CLT, Kevin Hart is quite possibly the hardest.

He’s arguably the most famous comedian on Earth, partly due to his leading roles in blockbusters like Ride Along and, most recently, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Growing up in Philly with an addict father, Hart never had it easy, but he made the best of it. Rather than dwell, he’s sharing his experiences with sold out arenas while laughing all the way to the bank.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: The Milestone, 3400 Tuckaseegee Road More: $7-10. themilestone.club

When: 9 p.m.

Where: Underground, 820 Hamilton St. More: $18. fillmorenc.com

When: 8 p.m.

Where: The Underground, 820 Hamilton St. More: Sold Out. fillmorenc.com

When: 1-4 p.m.

Where: Free Range Brewing, 2320 N. Davidson St. More: Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/TDOVFreeRange

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Spectrum Center, 2900 E. Independence Blvd.

More: $38 and up. spectrumcentercharlotte.com

AMANDLA

16 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Big K.R.I.T. FRIDAY

Cigarettes After Sex THURSDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FILLMORE

SATURDAY

31

JOE ROGAN What: You may remember him as the stoned host of Fear Factor, or the handyman on NewsRadio, but Joe Rogan has built himself quite a cult following since those gigs by being himself: returning to his roots as a stand-up comedian, working as a mixed-martial arts announcer and hosting one of the world’s most popular podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan’s intense and inquisitive style sucks people in to a podcast that runs three hours, three times a week.

When: 8 p.m.; 10:30 p.m.

Where: Ovens Auditorium, 2900 E. Independence Blvd.

More: $42 and up. ovensauditorium.com

SATURDAY

31

EL GRAN COMBO DE PUERTO RICO What: Dance your shoes raw when this legendary salsa band from San Juan, Puerto Rico, unleashes some of the finest Latin dance music you’ll ever experience. The most popular salsa band in the world, Colombians have bestowed the title La Universidad de la Salsa (the University of Salsa) on El Gran Combo. The band hit its stride in the ’60s and ’70s, backing numerous famous singers including such salsa royalty as the late Celia Cruz and Héctor Lavoe.

When: 9 p.m.

Where: The Fillmore Charlotte, 820 Hamilton St. More: $35. fillmorenc.com

SUNDAY

1

PHOTO BY EBRUY ILDIZ

SUNDAY

1

TUESDAY

3

WALTER SALAS-HUMARA

HANNIBAL BURESS

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE

What: It’s an excellent week to see some kick-ass ‘80s and ‘90s indie singer-songwriters at intimate venues. Not only is Silos founder Salas-Humara playing this gig at tiny Thirsty Beaver, but two nights later, equally cool Archers of Loaf founder Eric Bachman is playing an already sold-out house concert.

Before Salas-Humara became known for such experimental proto-alt-country classics as Cuba, with the Silos, he did time in Florida’s Vulgar Boatman.

What: Hopefully, Morehead Tavern doesn’t have any hangups with obscenity, because their next act is not one to go by the rules. Buress got his mic cut off during a recent performance at Loyola University Chicago, a Catholic university. He read his guidelines to the crowd — no jokes about sexual assault, race, sexual orientation or illegal drugs — before making a joke about the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. Ironically, now he’s here on Easter Sunday.

What: When going to see Broken Social Scene, one is never sure what one will get. You might be literally watching an entire musical scene, one that includes members associated with Metric, Feist, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, KC Accidental and more. The band consists of anywhere from six to 19 people, with the grand orchestrations including many instruments and elements of each aforementioned act. The culmination of all that controlled chaos may look broken, but it’s not.

When: 6 p.m.

Where: Thirsty Beaver, 1225 Central Ave. More: Free. tinyurl.com/ WalterSalas-Humara

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Morehead Tavern, 300 E. Morehead St. More: $30-35. moreheadtavern.com

When: 7 p.m.

Where: Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. More: $35-37. neighborhoodtheatre.com

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 17

MUSIC

FEATURE

The VS Guitar Duo: Vadim Kolpakov (right) with his nephew, Sasha Kolpakov, Jr.

PHOTOCHEMISTRY BY LUBA

DANCE OF THE ROMA Russian guitarist and Charlotte resident Vadim Kolpakov celebrates his invisible culture

BY MARK KEMP

T

HE YEAR: 2008. Charlottebased Russian guitar virtuoso Vadim Kolpakov was onstage in front of 60,000 Madonna fans packed into Park Izvor in Bucharest, Romania. Kolpakov and his uncle Alexander — the most famous Romany guitarist in Russia — were on tour with the American pop icon to perform the music and dance of Roma culture for hundreds of thousands of Madonna fans around the world.

On this stop, Madonna, cradling a black custom Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar and flanked by the Kolpakovs, raised a thorny issue with the audience: racism.

“It has been brought to my attention that there is a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in Eastern Europe. It made me feel very sad,” Madonna began. Some audience members booed, but Madonna was undeterred. “We don’t believe in discrimination against anyone,” she continued. “We believe in freedom and civil rights for everyone.”

More boos ensued, and a few of Madonna’s Romanian fans later complained to the Associated Press. “What business does she have telling us these things?”

23-year-old Ionut Dinu said. In comment sections on websites across Europe, some people were up in arms about Madonna’s statements, many of them making racist remarks about “Gypsies” and the pop star’s support of them.

The American press didn’t know exactly how to cover it. We’re not accustomed to confronting discrimination against Roma culture. We talk a lot about Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and racism against African Americans. But we don’t talk much about Romaphobia, which is a big deal all across Europe and, more subtly, here in America, where stereotypes of Romany people in popular culture typically portray them as Gypsy thieves or fortune tellers, or romanticize them in the wispy clothing and slithering dance moves of pop singers like Stevie Nicks.

Madonna’s scolding in Romania had not come without context. The year before the singer’s concert there with the Kolpakovs, the country’s president, Traian Basescu, was overheard calling a Romanian journalist a “stinky Gypsy.” The president later apologized, but his remark reopened a nasty can of worms: While discrimination 18 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

against Romany people is bad all over Europe, it’s particularly egregious in Romania. The Eastern European country that borders Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine is home to upwards of 2.5 million Romaney people, according to a 2017 Reuters report.

Vadim Kolpakov had discussed the issue with Madonna between tour stops. “We talked about it. We got information from human rights organizations in Roma communities in Romania, and we told her about it,” he says.

Kolpakov is sitting with his son Gregory and nephew Sasha at a window table at the Russian-owned Crema Espresso Bar & Café on East Boulevard in Dilworth. It’s a Saturday morning, and the guitarist, wearing jeans and a gray jacket over a Zoo York T-shirt, is having tea and crepes, and telling me about his 36-year journey from Soviet Russia to Boston to Charlotte, where today he lives, works and performs with his Estonian wife Marina, a flamenco and Russian-Romany dancer.

Nearly a decade after Kolpakov’s jaunt around the world with Madonna, the guitarist remains passionate about his Roma culture and its music. With his various ensembles, Kolpakov takes every opportunity not just to entertain people with his mind-bending dexterity on the Russian 7-string guitar, but also to educate them on the centuries-long plight of the Romany people.

On Friday, April 6, Kolpakov’s latest project, the VS Guitar Duo, with his equally talented nephew Sasha, will perform at Grace on Brevard in Uptown. The Brazilian bassist

Nelson Rios, Kazakhstani drummer Natalya Petrova and Indian percussionist Divakar Shukla will accompany the duo, and Marina will perform flamenco and Russian-Gypsy dances.

The show is an effort to bring attention to International Romany Day, celebrated around the world two days later on April 8.

The hostility Madonna’s remarks spurred in Romania, Kolpakov says, still haunts him.

“We were shocked,” he says. “Being onstage and experiencing that [from the audience], I can’t even. . .” He trails off. “But we’re very thankful to Madonna for bringing it up. She always wants to do the right thing, and I love her for that.”

FOR VADIM KOLPAKOV, THE ROAD to

Charlotte began with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. That’s when the world changed for the 10-year-old budding guitar prodigy who was already familiar with American popular music. His father had collected lots of Western music on vinyl — records he had acquired on the black market during the Soviet years in Saratov, the sprawling city on the massive Volga River in southeastern Russia where Vadim was born. One of his father’s records was a famous live trio album from 1981 by the great jazz guitarists John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía.

“Friday Night in San Francisco — that’s a classic,” Kolpakov says. “My father had this album and I was listening to it as a teenager.

And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh — amazing guitar playing.’”

By then, Russia had begun its rocky transition to a market economy, and Vadim and his generation of friends were being inundated with American music — hip-hop, R&B, pop and rock. Vadim liked to dance to Michael Jackson records, as well as to the traditional music of his own Roma culture.

And he’d already begun to play around a little on guitar. After all, his uncle Alexander was a world-famous Roma guitar virtuoso who’d served as the musical director of the Romen Gypsy Theatre in Moscow for 25 years.

Vadim didn’t get serious about the guitar, though, until he heard McLaughlin, de Lucía and Di Meola’s fingers flutter across the strings of their instruments on tracks like “Mediterranean Sundance/Rio Ancho” and the multi-part “Fantasia Suite.” It was then that Vadim Kolpakov knew what he wanted to do. And in 1996, the 15-year-old moved to Moscow to study guitar under his uncle, attend the Roma performing arts school Gilori, and eventually join the Romen Gypsy Theater as a guitarist, singer, dancer and actor.

Kolpakov was 17, and already a guitar virtuoso, the first time he touched down in the United States. He and his uncle had been tapped by the World Music Institute in New York City to tour as part of the Gypsy Caravan, a showcase of Romany performing artists that appeared at Lincoln Center and then traveled to several other U.S. cities.

“I was very impressed by the United States,” Kolpakov remembers. “The first place I came to was New York and it was like . . .

VS GUITAR DUO & FRIENDS 8-10 p.m. April 6. Grace on Brevard, 219 S. Brevard St. $20-$30. tinyurl. com/VSGuitarDuo

well, it was a little like Moscow, but still, of course, it was very different, too.”

After the tour, Kolpakov returned to Russia, but came back four years later when the Duke University-schooled musicologist Oleg Timofeyev invited the Kolpakovs to collaborate on a recording of 19th century Roma music with the Russian-American early-music group Talisman. The album, A Tribute to Stesha, came out on the classical music label Naxos in 2005, and the group performed a showstopper that year at the annual Boston Early Music Festival.

Still in his early 20s, Kolpakov soon became an in-demand guitarist and lecturer, performing his music in numerous ensembles, giving talks at Boston University, Harvard and other academic institutions, and appearing on National Public Radio.

In 2004 he moved to Boston on an O-1 visa, which allows non-citizens who have extraordinary talents in the arts, education and other disciplines into the United States.

“I ended up staying,” he says. “I loved it.”

While in Boston, Kolpakov put together another group, Via Romen, with another musicologist, singer Petra Gelbart. The group began performing in clubs and at Romany festivals across America. Kolpakov also met and fell for a young singer who was studying in Boston, and when she got a job in Charlotte in 2006, he tagged along. After landing a position of his own, as artist-inresidence at UNC Charlotte, life happened fast for Kolpakov. Within a year, the girl was history, Kolpakov had met and married his current wife, and Madonna was calling.

That opportunity came out of the blue. Kolpakov’s old pal Eugene Hütz, the Ukrainian-born front man of the Gypsypunk band Gogol Bordello, was working on Madonna’s directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom. Hütz had landed a lead part in the movie, whose soundtrack featured music by Vadim’s uncle. Hütz called up one day, and said Madonna had requested the Kolpakovs attend her birthday party in London.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, well, uh. . . OK, let’s do it!,” Kolpakov says, and laughs. “I was working at UNC Charlotte, and then I’m on tour with Madonna.”

The Kolpakov Trio — Alexander and Vadim, along with violinist Arkady Gips — performed their traditional Roma music with Madonna throughout 2008 on her “Sticky & Sweet” tour, playing in massive stadiums across Europe, North America, Mexico and South America. The first performance, Kolpakov remembers, was overwhelming. “It was a little scary,” he says. “I had never played in a stadium before, and it’s a challenge to play for 100,000 people.” Within a week, though, Kolpakov was a seasoned stadium pro. “You play every day and you get used to it, and then it’s like… I dunno, it’s like playing at home, you know. You don’t even think about it,” he says.

The Trio was having a blast. “It was the biggest, most expensive and most colorful

PHOTO COURTESY OF VADIM KOLPAKOV

tour that Madonna had ever done before,” Kolpakov says. “We enjoyed ourselves, and Vadim Kolpakov (left) rocks the arena with Madonna and her keyboardist Ric’key Pageot, if you enjoy your music — if you play it from playing the accordion, during her 2008 “Sticky & Sweet” tour. the bottom of your heart — then you will have success.”

ON A FRIGID NIGHT IN FEBRUARY, the nearly sold-out crowd inside Charlotte’s Knight Theater for the first Tosco Music Party of 2018 jumped to its collective feet and let out a roar of applause. The VS Guitar Duo — Vadim in a shiny red silk shirt, Sasha in blue — had just performed a dazzling medley of traditional Roma music. And they’d performed it from the bottoms of their hearts.

Vadim and his 24-year-old nephew have only been playing together for a few years.

Sasha, who still lives in Russia, travels back and forth to practice and perform. Still learning English, he’s shier than Vadim. “I started studying guitar at 7 years old in the same city we are all from, Saratov,” Sasha tells me in a hushed tone, avoiding direct eye contact. “I grew up in the Putin era, so it was very different from when Vadim grew up.”

The medley they performed at Knight Theater is one of eight songs on the VS Guitar Duo’s debut EP, Under Cover, a set of instrumental Romany interpretations of pop, jazz and traditional songs. It includes material ranging from Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” to “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” the theme song to a Soviet-era TV mini-series of the 1970s, and the “Gypsy Medley” that the duo played at the Tosco Party. The Kolpakovs also showed off their virtuosity during that February show on an Indian song, their fingers dancing over the nylon strings of their Kremona acoustic guitars like spiders flittering up and down their webs.

“Vadim and Sasha excited the crowd with their fiery guitar style,” John Tosco said of the duo’s performance. “They’ve played CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 19

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several Tosco Music events over the years, and they always astonish listeners and bring a tremendous energy when they perform.”

John Tosco is well-known in Charlotte for presenting eclectic bills of local musicians, and he calls the Kolpakovs “a perfect fit for that part of our mission, as they represent the Romany Gypsy guitar style. They illustrate just how rich Charlotte’s music scene really is.”

We should take this opportunity to talk about that word “Gypsy.” It’s cropped up throughout this story. When applied to people, it is an offensive term rooted in the mistaken belief by 16th century Britons that the Romany people who arrived in England during that period had come from Egypt (they actually came from India). The term was later applied negatively to other

World War and taken to Auschwitz. “Not many people know that the Roma holocaust was existing at the same time, from 1940 to about 1945,” Kolpakov says.

In 1986, Romany holocaust survivor Roman Mirga wrote about his experiences in the concentration camps. His father had been a musician, and the Nazis would use musicians in the camps to calm those who were being led to the gas chambers.

In Mirga’s writings — which became the basis for Alexander Ramati’s 1988 film And the Violins Stopped Playing: A Story of the Gypsy Holocaust, he remembers hearing the sound of Romany music: “In the distance violins were playing ‘The Blue Danube’. . . It was intended to calm the Jews going inside, soap and towels in their hands, no doubt believing they were taking a bath. Except that

“NOT MANY PEOPLE IN AMERICA KNOW THAT 1 MILLION ROMANY PEOPLE ARE LIVING HERE.” VADIM KOLPAKOV

The Victor Wooten Trio Saturday April 6th, 2018 at 7:30pm 828.726.2407

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nomadic peoples. In the centuries since, Gypsy has been used to caricature Romany people, and the shortened verb, “to gyp,” has been used as a pejorative to describe the act of swindling.

“It has nothing to do with real people,” Kolpakov says. “It’s a terrible stereotype.”

On the other hand, Gypsy is widely used as a description of traditional Romany music.

Because Romany styles encompass, among others, the French Gypsy jazz of guitarist Django Reinhardt, the flamenco music of Spain and the Russian Gypsy sounds of the Kolpakov Trio, it remains an acceptable term for music. “Gypsy music is not people,” Kolpakov explains. “Gypsy music became the style. Django was Romany, and he developed this new style of jazz, but it was Gypsy music just like ours is Gypsy music. It’s all Gypsy music. It all comes from the same heritage.”

That heritage can be traced back to the Indian subcontinent. Romanies left India in about the 10th century, as far as anthropologists can tell, and traveled to the Middle East and Europe. “The language survived verbally, by oral tradition — it was never written,” Kolpakov says. “And that’s what makes Romany people come together — same language, same roots. But as you know, in India they have so many dialects, and it’s the same with Romany people.

We have about 80 dialects, but the same linguistic roots — Sanskrit. And we’re tied by blood; we’re an ethnic group.”

What few people know is that Romanies have no homeland and therefore have been discriminated against everywhere — enslaved, beaten, expelled from countries.

“Very much like the Jewish people, a very similar history,” Kolpakov says, then pauses.

“But they got Israel about 70 years ago.” He lets out a muted laugh. “We’re still waiting, I guess. Maybe there’s some land in India somewhere.”

Also like Jewish people, Romanies were rounded up by the Nazis during the second

it was not a bath house, but a crematorium.

The Gypsy orchestra was there. . .their music helping to make a smooth transition for the Jews from life to death.”

Romany holocaust survivors settled all over Europe, where today 12 million still live and suffer indignities and discrimination.

Part of Kolpakov’s mission is to expose this discrimination and to shatter misconceptions about Roma culture. Because that culture is virtually invisible to most Americans, Kolpakov and the musicians and academics he works with want to bring it out into the open.

Although Kolpakov says he has never experienced the kind of discrimination against Romany people in Charlotte that he’s felt in Europe, he was initially amazed that few Americans are even aware of the Roma presence here. “Not many people in America know that 1 million Romany people are living here, and this drives me crazy,” he says. “A lot of Romany people are hiding and they don’t want to openly say that they are Roma. I’m not sure why. It was strange to me how that could be happening in America.”

For more than a decade, Kolpakov has taken his Roma music and culture across the U.S. with his ensembles, and around the world with Madonna. These days, he would like to share it more often with his fellow Charlotteans, so that we, too, will know that Romany people will be invisible no more.

“My focus right now is the VS Guitar Duo project with Sasha,” Kolpakov says. “We have this CD Under Cover out, we’re playing shows, we’re recording a new CD of original music. We specialize in Russian traditional Gypsy music, and we want people to learn about it, so we try to make it in a way that modern audiences can appreciate. That’s why we cover Michael Jackson and Adele songs. It puts a little twist on Gypsy music — a fusion of pop and jazz and Russian Gypsy music. You can listen to those tunes and then you see what we are talking about.”

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM

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ROMA ROCKS! A Gypsy music primer

BY MARK KEMP

WHEN VADIM KOLPAKOV’S fingers flutter over the nylon strings of his blonde, cutaway 7-string Kremona guitar, he is carrying on a music tradition that began centuries ago in India, and spread to countries across the Middle East, Europe and the world.

The Gypsy music tradition is bound by a culture that values virtuosity, but also good fun.

Romanies dance and sing and clap and snap and tap their instruments percussively. When Kolpakov and his nephew performed recently on Creative Loafing’s Local Vibes podcast, he would occaionally yell out “Ole,” like a flamenco guitarist, as he churned rhythmically on his instrument.

To get a better understanding of the scope of Gypsy music, check out these 10 albums, beginning with the familiar Gypsy jazz of the great Romany guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose “Minor Swing” most Americans know from movies such as the Johnny Depp vehicle Chocolat. Then dive deeper to explore the poetic Romany-Romanian music of Taraf de Haidouk, the flamenco guitarists of Spain and the Gypsy punk of the New York-based Gogol Bordello, led by Ukranian-born Eugene Hütz.

This is a small sampling, for sure, but these 10 albums will get you on your way to experiencing the joys of the Gypsy tradition.

DJANGO REINHARDT/STEPHANE GRAPPELLI Quintette du Hot Club de France: 25 Classics 1934-1940 (ASV, Living Era 1998) There are many Hot Club recordings, but this is a good, concise sampling of the great Gypsy jazz guitarist’s work with violinist Grappelli.

TARAF DE HAIDOUK Dumbala Dumba (Crammed, 1998) The third release from the Romany-Romanian ensemble highlights the group’s warm, exciting percussive, accordian- and violin-fueled sound.

MIRCO Gypsy Guitar: The Fiery Moods of Mirko (Folkways, 2004) Serbian guitarist Mirko Marković delivers gentle and spare performances of Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian and other Gypsymusic styles in an easy-listening setting.

GOGOL BORDELLO Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike (SideOneDummy, 2005) On the opposite end of the spectrum, this New York-based band blasts its way through a head-

spinning set of Gypsy-punk on a classic album produced by Steve Albini (Big Black, Nirvana).

TALISMAN A Tribute to Stesha: Early Music of Russian Gypsies (Naxos, 2005) In one delightful collection, the Kolpakovs join Talisman for a stellar homage to 19th century Russian-Gypsy diva Stepanida Soldatova, who went by the name Stesha.

VARIOUS ARTISTS The Rough Guide To Gypsy Music (World Music Network, 2009) This survey presents Balkan brass, Gypsy swing, flamenco and Romanian artists all in one package, and includes a bonus disc from Bela Lakatos & the Gypsy Youth Project.

VARIOUS ARTISTS The Rough Guide To The Music Of Russian Gypsies (World Music Network, 2010) Another Rough Guide survey, this one focuses on Russian Gypsy music from several artists and includes a bonus disc of music from Vadim and Alexander Kolpakov.

VIA ROMEN My Two Homes (CD Baby, 2010) A bittersweet set featuring the Kolpakovs, it runs from the warm and nostalgic title track to the darker “In Aushvitz.”

VARIOUS The Rough Guide to Flamenco Guitar (World Music Network, 2014) Many people believe flamenco is the music of Spain, and while that’s true, it’s more specifically the music of Spain’s Romany culture, and this is a good beginner’s survey of contemporary masters of flamenco guitar.

VS GUITAR DUO Under Cover (vadimKolpako.com, 2017) Vadim Kolpakov’s collaboration with his nephew Sasha fuses Russian Gypsy music with traditional, jazz and pop songs including Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” It’s a great way to dip your toes into the deep waters of the Russian Gypsy music style.

MKEMP@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 21

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FEATURE

BACK ALLEY BLUES Charlotte Film Society keeps the edge on the area’s silver screens

BY GREY REVELL

M

OST

PEOPLE

ENJOY

going to the movies to see the latest superhero cash-grabbing crashdown, or maybe a heartstrings-pulling flick featuring Emma Stone’s big eyes.

There’s a certain kind of film-goer, though, who wants — no, needs — to see Metropolis or Ran just as their auteurs intended: surrounded by fellow cinephiles in a dark room on a big screen. For those souls, the domino-like collapse of brick-and-mortar indie movie theaters in Charlotte may feel like a devastating loss.

“There are too many really great films, especially foreign, independent and arthouse cinema, that just are not exhibited in Charlotte,” Jay Morong says. He should know. He’s the program director for the Charlotte Film Society, the nonprofit organization that’s brought films like the restored Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure to Charlotte movie buffs in recent years.

Morong, 45, whose day job is senior lecturer in theater and film at UNC Charlotte, has watched the number of movie theaters dwindle to nearly nothing over the past few years. That’s why he takes his volunteer job at the Film Society so seriously.

“With the recent closing of Park Terrace and most of the non-corporate or non-chain cinemas going away, the Charlotte Film Society is committed more than ever to trying to bring even more films to Charlotte than we have in years past,” Morong says.

Following through on that commitment this week, the Charlotte Film Society’s Back Alley Film Series is screening Mohawk, the new film by writer director Ted Geoghegan, whose previous horror film, We Are Still Here, was screeened by the Back Alley in 2015.

Mohawk will be showing at C3 Lab on March 29, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10, or $5 for Film Society members.

The Film Society’s program director needed no convincing when he learned that a new Geoghegan flick was coming down the pipe. “I am a really big fan of Ted,” Morong says. “When I heard he had a new film, I immediately contacted the distributor to get a screener and see when the film was coming out. Once I screened the film, booking it was a no-brainer.”

Set in the early 1800s, Mohawk, a survival and revenge tale, stars Canadian actress Kaniehtiio Horn (Journey to the Center of 22 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Charlotte Film Society’s Back Alley Film Series will screen ‘Mohawk’ on March 29.

the Earth), and tells the story of a group of American soldiers who are chasing and tracking down a young Mohawk woman and her two lovers, a Mohawk tribesman and a former British soldier. Geoghegan weaves this seemingly straightforward scenario into a haunting commentary on the United States’ bloody beginnings, and the harrowing stories that are not easy to recount.

Mohawk has the violence and intensity that’s come to be expected from a Back Alley film, but there are very real observations at the film’s heart that will reveal themselves to a dedicated audience.

“At heart, we [the volunteers who make up the Charlotte Film Society] are just a group of Charlotte-area cinephiles who love film and community and seek to bring those two things together,” Morong says.

THE NON-PROFIT CINEMA GROUP

was founded in 1982 as all-volunteer organization with no paid board members, initially offering a subscription series that featured 10 to 12 foreign, classic and independent films. It then added its “Second Week” series, screening three to four films

during the second week of each month. The Society’s first home was Queen Park Theater, before moving, in 1988, to the Manor Theatre in Myers Park and later expanding to Regal Stonecrest Theater in Ballantyne.

Today, the Film Society offers three programs, the Saturday Night Cine Club, the Back Alley Film Series and the newest, Charlotte Film Lab. The Cine Club launched at Theatre Charlotte on Queens Road in 2009. It was a new initiative for the Society, bringing in guest speakers to talk about the movies being screened, and moderating discussions among the creators of film and audience. The program was a success, and the Film Society and Theatre Charlotte have continued the program.

The newer Charlotte Film Lab expands the Saturday Night Cine Club’s mission to bring filmmakers and audiences together to discuss cinema. Its aim is to provide a viewing ground for innovative cinematic works, as well as an opportunity for intimate conversation with the creators of the films in a setting built around the screened works.

Supporters of the Saturday Night Cine Club get the opportunity to speak with filmmakers

PHOTOS COURTESY OF DARK SKY FILMS

and actors, and hear tales of productions that don’t make the cut.

The Back Alley Film series, which launched in 2011 at Crown Point Stadium on Monroe Road, offers cinemaphiles a chance to see a wide array of truly independent films, often shown by directors who travel with their films in tow, and share their stories one crowd at a time. Of course, as any good screenwriter will tell you, all good stories inevitably run into problems, and the Film Society’s edgy series wasn’t spared the rod.

Brad Ritter, the Charlotte Film Society’s current president (and the manager of the Manor) remembers when gentrification came knocking on the Back Alley’s door. “Crown Point, who we’d had a great relationship with, had sold out to Cinemark, one of the larger corporate chains,” Ritter, a CFS board member since 1994, says. “Cinemark quickly booted us out.”

Apparently Cinemark, a multibilliondollar conglomerate, had no room for an independent arthouse program in its theaters. But the Charlotte Film Society saw a light at the end of the tunnel — C3 Lab, another independent arts group in the Queen City. It is an artist collective and creative rental space dedicated to fighting the cultural drain that Charlotte’s gentrification has brought. Quietly tucked into an industrial area of South End, C3 heard about the Film Society’s dilemma, and took the initiative to extend an invitation to the embattled group.

“We knew of the Film Society, and once we created the space, we felt that having films here would be a great idea,” says Glen Nocik, one of C3 Lab’s owners. The 46-yearold artist and entrepeneur says it made perfect sense to him for C3 Lab to collaborate with the Film Society. “The Back Alley Film Series already existed, so we reached out to them to see if there was a partnership we could arrive at,” Nocik says. “We’ve been showing funky films here since 2016, and it’s been a great arrangement.”

Ritter says he and Nocik have been working hard to nurture the Back Alley series, and independent cinema in general.

“C3 Lab reached out to us out of the blue and have been great to work with,” Ritter says.

Not that the Charlotte Film Society is

the only game in town when it comes to bringing great cinema to the Queen City. The Charlotte Jewish Film Festival, launched in 2005, has become a major annual event. And the Carolina Film Community holds an annual film contest, Made In Carolinas, which has donated funds to help budding filmmakers.

And then there’s the Charlotte Black Film Festival (running next month, from April 5-8) and the CineOdyssey Film Festival (coming in July), both of which bring the works of cutting-edge directors of color to Charlotte, as well as the Classic Black Cinema Series at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.

Tre’ McGriff, founder and director of CineOdyssey, applauds the Charlotte Film Society, “not only for their longevity, but also for being the springboard for the creation of other film organizations that serve niche, underserved and diverse audiences,” he says. McGriff says he’s looking forward to partnering with CFS on April 9 at the Sensoria Arts Festival for a screening of the documentary Quest.

THE CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY’S

criteria for curating films is straightforward.

“We have a small committee of folks who screen tons of films and then whittle that down to the films we screen,” Morong says.

Morong, Ritter and the rest of the CFS volunteers commitment to bringing great cinema to the Queen City in the face of corporate culture and gentrification has produced dividends. Charlotte has had the opportunity to see edgy independent films like Obit, the 2016 documentary directed by Vanessa Gould, which screened at more than 40 major film festivals, including Tribeca, and Human Flow, the documentary directed

by Chinese activist filmaker Ai Weiwei. Both films screeened to sold-out crowds, and Morong remains optimistic about getting more great films in Charlotte.

“With the recent closing of Park Terrace [in December 2017] and most of the noncorporate or non-chain cinemas in Charlotte going away, the Charlotte Film Society is committed more than ever to trying to bring even more films to Charlotte than we have in years past,” Morong says.

The Film Society plans to continue its relationships with other organizations, like the Charlotte Film Festival, the Reel Out Film Festival, CPCC’s Sensoria Festival and the CineOdyssey Film Festival to program sponsored screenings at their events that will help bring even more films to Charlotte cinemaphiles.

In April, the Saturday Night Cine Club will bring In The Fade, directed by the Turkish director Fatih Akin, and Back Alley will bring Pyewacket, directed by Adam MacDonald.

Bringing people and cinema culture together in the soothing dark of American movie houses remains the Charlotte Film Society’s prime directive. “Our core mission is to bring films to Charlotte that have not, or will not, screen at the local theaters,” Morong says, “So we try to pick the best ones — the ones we think our audience will really enjoy — and give our people an opportunity to see them in a theatrical setting.”

Beats the limited choices on Netflix or Amazon on even the largest of the big-screen home TVs. BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

ARTS

ARTSPEAK

IN AN INSTANT David Butler launches modern day brand that embraces throwback mediums

BY RYAN PITKIN

DAVID BUTLER WAS born and raised in Charlotte, but it took him going away to notice the change that was occuring in the culture here.

While attending Winston-Salem State University from 2009 to 2013, Butler started to sense a change in his hometown from afar.

“When I was up in school, kids were coming up to Winston, and I could tell there was just a different vibe back home,” he recalled. “People were starting to wear shit with Charlotte on it. The vibe was just different, and I could tell.”

When Butler came home, he dove headfirst into the culture, mixing his passion for hip-hop and photography to launch DavehasWingz, a blog highlighting local rappers and shows. In 2014, he released a book of his photography work, but soon began contemplating how he could better monetize his work.

Earlier this year, Butler launched Analogue Luxury, a brand based on nondigital photography - Polaroids and disposable film - used to create home decor, as opposed to the tees and hats he sold through the DavehasWingz brand.

Butler recently brought on renowned Charlotte photographer Alvin C. Jacobs to help curate a physical space, for which he is currently hosting a crowdfunding campaign.

We sat with Butler outside of Smelly Cat Coffeehouse in NoDa on a recent afternoon to discuss why DavehasWingz had to give way to a more profitable model aimed at grown folks.

Creative Loafing: How did you get into photography?

David Butler: It goes all the way back to middle school, and even further back than that. We always had Polaroids and stuff around the house. My mom bought me my first digital point-and-shoot camera in middle school. In high school, I was going on these HBCU tours and I would document the trips with this pointand-shoot, and we were making little videos and all types of stuff. That’s kind of where it all started and I didn’t even realize that at that point I was planting seeds for what would be a future in artistic innovation.

How did the idea come about for Analogue Luxury?

It goes back to my 2014 book release, because I documented that whole book release on instant film; it was a Fuji Film Instax camera, it wasn’t like a traditional Polaroid like I’m shooting now. I had bought a 100 pack and took pictures of everything that was going

One of Butler’s photos of Elevator Jay and Autumn Rainwater at Snug Harbor.

PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

on at the show, as people were interacting with the book, etc. So I had those images in a plastic bag and I was looking at it one day and I was like, “This should be my next book.” So those seeds go back to 2014-15.

But instead of a book, you created a new brand. How did that develop?

I was like, “I need to stay creative, and I still love photography, but I’m not trying to do it in a way that requires me to edit photos or anything like that. I want it to just be natural, quick, instinctual.” And the idea of doing that Polaroid book, it just came back to me. I added on disposable film as well, just because it’s a little more of a throwaway medium. So the brand itself is based in disposable film and Polaroid film.

So I’m just living life, going to shows, still supporting the scene, doing different things, taking photos, documenting all these experiences, and then allowing those photos to either be translated into fine art that physically goes on people’s walls, or to inspire collections and garments. Everything is going to be based on the photos. I’m looking at the photos, I’m living with them, and they’re either going to be to the quality where I can let that hang on somebody’s wall, or just a thought process where it’s going to inspire some type of garment or some type of fixture to go in somebody’s house, from a coffee mug to a pillow or whatever.

So a picture on the wall or a coffee mug is straightforward, but the more you get into home decor, like a pillow, how do you pull that off without it becoming corny?

There might be an actual photo that’s turned into a t-shirt or into a coffee mug, but I wouldn’t necessarily do that for a pillow.

I would include some design elements, because the context has to match. If you put it on a pillow, it’s probably not going to have the same impact, so I’m paying attention to those design sensibilities and thinking about it from much more of a home décor aspect.

If I’m going to do some bedding or some curtains or a floor mat, I wouldn’t just throw a photo on it and be done.

But why the focus on home decor? It’s not something you see many folks your age interested in.

I come from the world and the mindset and attitude of streetwear. It’s one of the things that I love. But homies are just getting a lot

older, so not everybody is going to continue to wear what we’re wearing now; everybody’s growing and evolving. People are getting houses, they’re opening up studios, they’re running businesses, and all this kind of stuff.

So how can I take that same streetwear mindset and mentality that’s normally put into clothing, and put it into goods that are going to keep people intrigued and inspired in their spaces and make them want to work hard, keep working on their craft, keep doing dope shit? It’s taking on that mindset and being able to put it into some home décor items that are going to bring value to their space.

Why non-digital film?

It’s definitely the tangible nature of it. I enjoy going to my grandmothers’ houses and digging into crates of photos. Especially since my father passed away when I was young, I literally have photos of him and I from my first birthday.

I really want my kids and grandkids to have that same experience. Like, “Oh word, you guys were going to hip-hop shows. You guys were on Venice Beach.” I don’t want to be like, “Check out your birth on this file, I uploaded it for the world to see.” [laughs] That’s where the intrinsic inspiration is to stick with the older mediums, it’s the tangible nature of it, being able to have something physical.

What would you like to see being done in this city, whether within the scene itself or from folks on the outside who could support?

The momentum is there, it’s just about getting more people to push and getting one on accord. I’d like to see more creatives empowered in thinking about their stuff from a business and career perspective and not so much of a hobbyist perspective.

On the infrastructure side, I would like to see places like the Knight Foundation and Arts & Science Council and whoever else, Foundation for the Carolinas, whoever it is, I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in providing opportunities, and also see them think about the ideas that they’re getting and receiving in a different context instead of funding the same types of ideas over and over and over again, or ideas that come from the same type of people over and over and over again.

To check out Butler’s campaign, visit tinyurl. com/AnalogueLuxury.

RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 23

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD MARCH 29 COUNTRY/FOLK 96.9 The Kat Presents Ones to Watch: Michael Ray, Jimmie Allen,Jillian Jacqeline, Mitchell Tenpenny, Trent Harmon (Coyote Joe’s)

DJ/ELECTRONIC DJ Matt B (Tin Roof) Gravitate Vol 2 - The Hottest Afro, Deep and Tech House (Petra’s) Le Bang presents SLAY! Heiress Hilton Birthday Party (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Open Mic at Studio 13 (Studio 13, Cornelius) Carmen Tate Solo Acoustic (Eddie’s on Lake Norman, Mooresville) Open Mic for Musicians (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) Act 2 (RiRa Irish Pub) Amandla, Bless These Sounds Under the City, The Emotron, Dinner Rabbits (Milestone) Cigarettes After Sex (The Underground) Karaoke (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Kerry Brooks (Comet Grill) Shana Blake and Friends (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Shannon McNally, Erin Costelo (Evening Muse)

MARCH 30 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Marbin (Evening Muse)

COUNTRY/FOLK Doug McCormick, Cody Webb (Sylvia Theatre, York) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Bridge, Jesse Saunders (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub) Mirror Moves - 80’s Dance Party! (Petra’s)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Big K.R.I.T., Cyhi Da Prynce (The Underground) DJ Red Alert’S Good Friday Take-Over (Vibrations)

POP/ROCK Walter Finley (Boardwalk Billy’s UNCC) The Armory (Tin Roof) Crashbox (RiRa Irish Pub) 24 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

Delta Rae (McGlohon Theater) Dollar Signs, Joystick, Corporate Fandango, Fozmo (Milestonee) Jennifer Hartswick & Nick Cassarino (Heist Brewery) Kris Atom (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Sam Burchfield & The Scoundrels, Justin Trawick (Evening Muse) Sinners & Saints, Cicada Rhythm, Dane Page (Visulite Theatre) Stop Light Observations, Rare Creatures (Neighborhood Theatre) Vince McKinley (Smokey Joe’s Cafe)

MARCH 31 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL El Gran Combo (The Fillmore)

COUNTRY/FOLK River Ratz, Modern Moxie, Sweetgrass Serenade (Petra’s) Time Sawyer Band (Reid’s Fine Foods SouthPark)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Cofresi (The Rabbit Hole) Tilted DJ Saturdays (Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery) Zenith by Big Puffy Yellow (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B GLBL, Bosq, Brut Beat, Brother Aten (Snug Harbor) Stitchy C & Kyng Rash, Ed E. Ruger & DJ Phillie Phr3sh, Dead Sea $crills, Whitty, Ty Bru, 485 Shawty (Milestone)

POP/ROCK 2 Door Chicken Coupe (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) 76 and Sunny (Tin Roof) Airforce, Steel Heroes (Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby) Band from a Hat 2k18 Showcase (The Courtroom, Rock Hill) Clay Cook (Evening Muse) Cofresi (The Rabbit Hole) Colby Dobbs Band (Heist Brewery) Donna Duncan (Comet Grill) Elephant Convoy, Lovely Budz, Monjah (Neighborhood Theatre) Jay Mathey Band (RiRa Irish Pub) Lily Rose (Primal Brewing, Huntersville)

SOUNDBOARD Linnie & Amy Joy (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Maradeen, Little Bird (Visulite Theatre) Waker (Evening Muse) The Weight Band (McGlohon Theater)

APRIL 1 BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL Charlotte Blues Society Celebrates 25 Years: Joseph MIchael Mahfoud (The Rabbit Hole)

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

POP/ROCK David Childers (Free Range Brewing Company) Walter Salas-Humara (Thirsty Beaver) Omari and The Hellhounds (Comet Grill)

APRIL 2

COUNTRY/FOLK Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill)

POP/ROCK Broken Social Scene, The Belle Game (Neighborhood Theatre) Community Center, Snailmate, Human Pippi Armstrong, Bottle of Smoke (Milestone) Grown Up Avenger Stuff, Happy Fits, Reaves (Snug Harbor) Uptown Unplugged with Chas, Tyler & Taylor (Tin Roof) Open Jam with the Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe) Open Mic hosted by Jarrid and Allen of Pursey Kerns (The Kilted Buffalo, Huntersville)

Free Hookah Wednesdays Ladies Night (Kabob House, Persian Cuisine)

DJ/ELECTRONIC

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

POP/ROCK Casey Abrams (Neighborhood Theatre) Find Your Muse Open Mic welcomes back Rob Williams! (Evening Muse) Locals Live: The Best in Local Live Music & Local Craft Beers (Tin Roof) Music Bingo (Tin Roof) Piano Karaoke with Ryan Stamey (Petra’s) Music Trivia (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern, Charlotte)

APRIL 3 DJ/ELECTRONIC BYOV: Bring Your Own Vinyl (Petra’s)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Eclectic Soul Tuesdays - RnB & Poetry (Apostrophe Lounge) Soul Station (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

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

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

POP/ROCK April Residency: Paint Fumes (Snug Harbor) Daniels & Baker (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) Dead Flowers Circus Sideshow, HellcatHarlowe (Milestone) Liz Longley, The HarmaLeighs (Evening Muse) Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Caamp (The Fillmore) Rogue Wave, Dear Boy (Visulite Theatre) Wishbone Ash (Neighborhood Theatre) Songwriter Open Mic @ Petra’s (Petra’s) Trivia & Karaoke Wednesdays (Tin Roof)

COMING SOON John Craigie (April 5, Evening Muse) The Eagles (April 11, Spectrum Center) Davina & The Vagabonds (April 15, Evening Muse) Lindi Ortega (April 22, Evening Muse)

96.9PRESENTS THE KAT ONES TO WATCH WITH

MICHAEL RAY JIMMIE ALLEN JILLIAN JACQELINE MITCHELL TENPENNY AND TRENT HARMON TICKETS $15 EACH

SATURDAY, APRIL 14

THE CASEY DONAHEW BAND LIMITED ADVANCE $12 ALL OTHERS $15

SATURDAY, APRIL 21

THE LACS

LIMITED ADVANCE $12 ALL OTHERS $15

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

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL

Jazz Mondays (Crown Station Coffeehouse and Pub)

THIS THURSDAY

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

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Bugalú: One Year Anniversary! (Petra’s)

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

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

APRIL 4

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH

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

MUSIC

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

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

3/30 SINNERS & SAINTS - CICADA RHYTHM - DANE PAGE 3/31 MARADEEN & LITTLE BIRD 4/4ROGUE WAVE 4/13MIPSO 4/14 TOUBAB KREWE 4/16 THE ACES 4/17 WOLF ALICE 4/18 THIRD STORY 4/20 OLD 97s 4/19 NINA NESBITT 4/21SOUTHERN CULTURE THEON SKIDS 4/26 LYDIA LOVELESS 4/28 ATLAS ROAD CREW 5/2 TAUK 5/6 (the) MELVINS 5/19 The CLARKS 5/15 TANK AND THE BANGAS 5/31 Justin Townes Earle 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.

FRIDAY, MAY 4

COYOTE JOE’S 27TH BIRTHDAY BASH STARRING GRANGER SMITH FEATURING EARL DIBBLES JR LIMITED ADVANCE $10 ALL OTHERS $12

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

SATURDAY, MAY 12

AARON WATSON LIMITED ADVANCE $17 ALL OTHERS $20

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

SATURDAY, MAY 19

DYLAN SCOTT

LIMITED ADVANCE $17 ALL OTHERS $20 ON SALE AT COYOTE JOES AND COYOTE-JOES.COM COYOTE JOE’S : 4621 WILKINSON BLVD

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

704-399-4946

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

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | 25

FREE TRIAL

ENDS

NIGHTLIFE

Playmates and soul mates

A BIRDSONG-EYE VIEW Spring time brings out the brewery side in me

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grilled cheeses, coriander dill pickles, tomato DESPITE THE FACT that winter is still soup and two cokes. trying to remain a part of the conversation, We grabbed a spot at a picnic table on spring officially started on March 20, and the spacious outdoor patio while we waited you know what that means: brewery season will soon be in full effect. for our food.

That’s right, welcome back babies, dogs The boyfriend brought it to my attention and craft beer baking under the Queen City that the type of brewery-goers in our sun. presence were quite unlike those we’d seen at I’ve never been much of a brewery gal other breweries like Sycamore. It’s difficult – blame it on the fact that I lack the proper to pinpoint exactly why the crowd was so uniform (don’t act like you don’t know what different (for one, everyone wasn’t dressed I mean). Nevertheless, it’s hard to avoid the alike), but you can see it for yourself if you popular pastime during the summer months. stop by.

All of my friends enjoy drinking the For one of the first times, I was day away on one of many patios actually enjoying a brewery across the city. atmosphere. Sprinkle in the This past Sunday I fact that the sun was actually realized I hadn’t even been warm enough to keep us to Birdsong Brewing, outside, and you had the one of the OGs of the makings of a great day for Charlotte brewery scene. visiting a new spot.

The boyfriend, We enjoyed our meal who isn’t much for the and decided that we were brewery scene either, having such a good time was still surprised I that we’d stay for a beer and hadn’t at least visited the AERIN SPRUILL watch the first half of the Belmont neighborhood Duke/Kansas NCAA tournament staple (sometimes confused game on his phone. for still being a part of NoDa).

I stepped inside the 17,000-squareAfter all, they’ve been open since April foot building and was utterly impressed. of 2015. Crazy right?! It seems like only Despite a decent amount of #sundayfunday yesterday I remember seeing the Angry Birdtraffic, the spacious interior was bright and esque signage going up during a trek to JackBeagles. inviting. Perfect for lots of puppies, private Combine the fact that I’d tasted their events, live music and quite a few beers right famous Jalapeno Pale Ale (quickly deciding by the taps behind the curved bar. it was an acquired taste) with its location I stood at the bar for just a matter of being just outside of my NoDa comfort zone, moments before someone was asking me it shouldn’t have been surprising to anyone what I’d like to order – a rare experience at a that I hadn’t made the trek. venue like Sycamore Brewing.

This past Sunday, however, the stars The boyfriend had already told me what aligned. My darling and I were trying to he wanted but I, on the other hand, wanted figure out what we were going to eat for lunch to see if they had a sour I could try. And when I scrolled past Papi Queso’s Instagram: guess what? They’d just released a new one “MELTing 2-6pm @birdsongbrewing.” That on March 10. Lucky me! I ordered Pink was the caption underneath a tantalizing Robots Raspberry & Blackberry Kettle Sour picture of an ooey gooey grilled cheese and again, I was impressed. sandwich. (If you haven’t tried this grilled I took the beers outside and then walked cheese streatery, you have no idea what back in for one more peak as I scooped up a you’re missing out on.) bowlful of peanuts.

“Papi” hadn’t tasted Papi Queso before Yep, you’ll see a large majority of so it was only a matter of minutes before Birdsong patrons munching and crunching we were in the car and headed down North on free peanuts. Who would this local tourist Davidson Street for our own respective firstbe not to give them a try? time experiences.

The time passed quickly and slowly all at We pulled into a front row parking spot the same time on the patio that afternoon. It just a few feet away from the food truck. wasn’t long before I accepted the fact that I’d We’ve usually investigated a menu and be back very soon. decided on exactly what we want before we In fact, I may just become that brewery step foot in a restaurant. That’s why there was no hesitation when we walked up to girl I’ve always tried to avoid after all.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM the window and ordered two bacon jalapeno

ENDS

FeeLing Lonely?

CROSSWORD

SILENT DUO ACROSS

1 Watchful 8 Abjectly submissive 15 Floral shop receptacles 20 More candid 21 Fingernail surrounder 22 Novelist Munro 23 Bands of fibrous tissue enclosing muscles 24 Inept warrior in armor?

26 Like escaped convicts 28 See 17-Down 29 Slaughter of the diamond 30 Member of a certain antelope fraternity?

34 Plasma particle 36 “Hurlyburly” playwright David 37 Med. drips 38 Certain book of liturgy 43 Anti-DUI ad, e.g.

46 Ending for Alp or salt 47 Concept, to Jean-Luc 49 Activity when shopping for sweaters?

51 Person who repositions tiny flies?

54 “Life of Pi” novelist Martel 55 Something easy-peasy 56 Apia resident 57 “Nothin’ --!” (“Easypeasy!”)

59 In the dossier, e.g.

60 First-class 63 Sword stopper 67 Bireme tool 68 Shoelace snarl of note?

73 Young male, urban-style 74 Like many offshore rescues 75 Outdoor enclosure for tabbies 76 In a mischievous way 79 Inside: Prefix 81 Beautiful guy 85 Persian-founded faith 86 “That feels go-o-od!”

89 “ ‘One-l lama’ poet, grind your teeth!”?

92 Had some friends south of the border?

95 Poker cost 96 Norma -- (Field role) 97 Horse’s kin 98 Call halfway to a walk 99 “Delish!”

100 Wound, after a few days

101 Twisty letter 102 Far northern city inhabited by trolls?

106 Sheep’s hair 109 Wear down 114 Convenient kind of shopping 115 Confession after hitting your physician with your leg joint?

118 Angel, musically 122 Big rig, e.g.

123 Lava spewer 124 Automaker Maserati 125 Impetuosity 126 Very vivid 127 Totally faded

DOWN

1 Out of whack 2 Pro-gun org.

3 Auto fluid 4 Set free 5 Spitz variety 6 Province 7 More moony 8 Singer Boz 9 Light unit 10 -- glance 11 “La Dolce --” 12 Chilled 13 Pivot 14 Wife of Zeus 15 With 90-Down, actor Jean-Claude 16 Foreign 17 With 28-Across, ink the contract 18 Canyon reply 19 Puts (down) 25 -- light (lamp on a film set) 27 Ominous bird 30 Prudish sorts 31 -- -Barbera 32 Flanged girder 33 News svc.

35 Like Mork, per his planet 39 Reaping tool 40 Alias lead-in 41 Maya of architecture 42 Cable TV’s Spike, once 43 Rack-and- -- steering 44 Camp for Colonel Klink 45 According to 47 “But is --?”

48 Faye of films 49 NBAer, e.g.

50 Rubber check abbr.

52 Food-order option 53 French political units 58 “What a piece of work --” 59 Aromatic substance 61 “Where -- start?”

62 Bungle 64 Wearing a disguise, informally 65 Airport info 66 Illuminated 68 Holy books of Islam 69 Cubbyholes 70 Bray sound 71 Slight push 72 A party to 73 Easter cake 77 Hem and -78 Bird perches 80 Toledo “two” 82 User busters 83 Rockabilly singer Chris 84 “Come Back, Little --” 86 Rocker Rose 87 Be laid up 88 Drama unit 90 See 15-Down 91 Got tangled 93 Slacked off 94 Eggy quaff 99 Marilyn of “The Misfits” 100 Depleted 101 Opt 103 Lunchtimes, often 104 Early name in arcades 105 “Bonanza” star Greene 106 Among 107 Creole pod 108 Difficult task 110 Shankar of Indian music 111 Take too much, briefly 112 Knucklehead 113 Nero’s “Lo!” 116 Stretch (out) 117 Almond-hued 119 Prefix for “equal” 120 Erwin of films 121 Young kid

graB Your copy today

SOLUTION FOUND ON P. 30.

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29- APR. 4, 2018 | 27

ENDS

SAVAGE LOVE

Real hot chat now.

COCK LOCKED Don’t get ‘stuck’ without a plan B

BY DAN SAVAGE

I’m in a D/s relationship. I’m not submissive around the clock, but my partner owns my cock. We’ve purchased several male chastity devices, but I can pretty easily get my cock out of them.

My partner did some investigating and learned that the only effective devices work with a Prince Albert piercing — a ring through the head of the penis that locks into the device, preventing the sub from pulling his cock out. My partner now wants me to get a PA. I don’t want to get my cock pierced and I’ve said so, but I haven’t safe-worded on it. I would very reluctantly do it to please her. My partner made an appointment for a piercing three months from now, on our second anniversary. She told me that we can cancel it if I can find an effective chastity device that doesn’t require a piercing. Do you or any of your contacts in the fetish world know of any devices that are inescapable?

PIERCING APPENDAGE UNNECESSARILY SCARES EAGER SUB

“I’ve never come across a standard male chastity device I couldn’t pull out of,” said Ruffled Sheets, “so PAUSES’s partner has obviously researched regular chastity devices well.”

Sheets is an IT consultant who lives in the United Kingdom with his partner of 15 years.

Male chastity devices have fascinated him for more than two decades and, as of this writing, he owns 37 different kinds of cock cages. His partner frequently keeps his cock locked up for weeks or months at a time — and if there were such a thing as a commercially available male chastity device that was inescapable, Sheets would know about it.

“However, all is not lost,” said Sheets.

“Piercing is one of two ways to ensure the penis cannot escape. The other is a full chastity belt. Now, full belts aren’t without their drawbacks — they are generally more expensive, are harder to conceal under clothes, and take longer to get used to, especially at night. But they are secure. I have three custom-fitted chastity belts and, once properly fitted, they’re inescapable.”

Sheets’ chastity belts were made for him by Behind Barz (behindbarz.co.uk) and Fancy Steel (fancysteel.com.au).

But if most commercially available male chastity devices aren’t inescapable, what’s the point? Why would a person bother to wear one?

“You can only partially escape,” said Sheets. “It’s possible to pull out the penis but not remove the device,” which is anchored around the balls and base of the shaft. “And 28 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

a partially removed device is awkward and Ruffled Sheets blogs at ruffledsheets. uncomfortable.” com, where he reviews male chastity devices For many male subs and their Doms, the and other sex toys. Follow him on Twitter @ symbolism of a male chastity device is what ruffledsheets. matters most, not its inescapability. And as with other forms of sex play and most aspects My girlfriend of four months has of healthy relationships, the honor system unofficially moved in with me. We makes it work. began as a long-distance thing; I live “As in any negotiated relationship, you in New York City and she lived in the can cheat,” said Sheets. “But why cheat?

Deep South. What began as her visiting They’re easy to keep on if you’re genuinely me for the holidays ended up with her interested in submitting.” staying with me indefinitely. She comes Fun fact: Locking a guy’s cock in an from a very poor family, and going back inescapable device doesn’t prevent him from home means sleeping in her grandma’s coming. living room. Things are going well, but “A device can be locked in place with we are moving fast. I’m not sure how I a belt or a piercing, but orgasms feel about this. On one hand, I’m are still possible,” said Sheets. loving it and loving her. On the “I’ve yet to discover any other hand, I feel like she kind of device that can could be using me. She has prevent the wearer from found part-time work. She achieving orgasm if hasn’t pitched in for rent he’s holding a powerful — I also have a roommate wand massager against — but she has pitched in it, especially after weeks for groceries. Do I ask her without coming.” for rent money? Do I send So if your Dominant her back to her grandma’s is locking up your cock to place? I don’t know what DAN SAVAGE prevent you from coming, to do because I feel like I am PAUSES, she’ll also need to housing a refugee. lock up her vibrators.

SHE’S HERE INDEFINITELY NOW There are two other things Instead of ending things now to protect Sheets wanted you to be aware of as you yourself from retroactively feeling shitty begin to explore male chastity, PAUSES. about this relationship if it ends at some “Lots of men are shy about being point in the future, SHIN, you should have submissive,” said Sheets, “so they’ll say things a convo with your girlfriend about rent, like ‘I’m normally dominant in real life,’ kind reality and roommates. Tell her that it can’t of like PAUSES opened his letter by saying go on like this indefinitely — living in your he isn’t submissive ‘around the clock.’ I just apartment rent-free — as it’s unfair to your wanted to make sure he understood that roommate and that kind of support is too chastity is a long-term game. For most of much to expect from someone she’s been us in chastity devices, it’s a 24/7 affair — seeing for only four months. Tell her you literally around the clock.” If you said you appreciate the ways she’s kicking in now weren’t submissive around the clock because — helping with groceries — but eventually you didn’t want to admit that you are, in she’ll need to start kicking in on rent too, fact, submissive around the clock, PAUSES, and then set a realistic date for her to start chastity play won’t be a problem. But if you paying rent. You should also encourage her meant it — if you’re not capable of remaining to think about getting her own place. Not in a submissive headspace for more than a because you want to stop seeing her — you’re few hours — you’ll need to ask your partner, loving it and loving her — but because a before the padlock clicks shut, just how long premature commitment (and cohabitating is she intends to keep your cock locked up. a commitment) can sabotage a relationship.

“Being locked also has another side effect You also don’t want her to feel so dependent that you wouldn’t perhaps anticipate,” Sheets on you that she can’t end things if she needs added. “Whenever you become turned on, to. You want her to be with you because you feel your cage or belt against your penis. she wants to be with you, not because she’s It can be anything from a gentle reminder to trapped. a vice-like grip, depending on your arousal level. And whenever this happens, your mind You ran a letter from a man whose automatically turns to your key holder, even wife wouldn’t let him spank her. I’m a if they’re not around.” woman whose husband won’t spank me.

30 MINUTES FREE TRIAL

704-731-0113

18+ Vibeline.com I found a man like WISHOTK, and we meet up for spanking sessions. Neither of our spouses know. It’s only spanking, no sex. How bad should I feel?

REALLY EROTIC DALLIANCES BUT, UM, MARRIED

Very bad. In fact, REDBUM, I think you should be spanked for getting spanked behind your husband’s back — then spanked again for getting spanked for getting spanked behind your husband’s back. And then spanked some more.

On the Lovecast, the urologist is IN: savagelovecast.com; follow @fakedansavage on Twitter; mail@savagelove.net; go to ITMFA.org.

NOW HIRING INTERNS. THE BRIGHTER, THE BETTER. EMAIL BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29- APR. 4, 2018 | 29

LILLY SPA

SALOME’S STARS

ENDS

704-392-8099 MON-SUN 9AM-11PM LOCATED NEAR THE AIRPORT EXIT 37 OFF I-85 WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS

SOUTH ON BEATTIES FORD ROAD THEN FIRST RIGHT ON MONTANA DRIVE (LOCATED 1/2 MILE ON THE LEFT | 714-G MONTANA DR)

SOLUTION TO THIS WEEK'S PUZZLE

WHERE WE ALL REFUSE TO WEAR SOCKS.

ARIES (March 21 to

April 19) Rumors of a change in the workplace could make you a mite uneasy about going ahead with implementing your ideas. Best advice: Ignore the talk and proceed as planned.

TAURUS (April 20

to May 20) Everyone has an opinion on how to handle a recent business suggestion.

Thank them for their advice. Then go ahead and follow your own fine instincts.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) A suggestion from a colleague could give your professional project that longneeded boost.

Meanwhile, someone close to you still needs your emotional support.

SCORPIO

(October 23 to November 21) Before complying with a colleague’s request, check to see that the action benefits all, not just one person’s agenda.

Continue firming up those travel plans.

SAGITTARIUS GEMINI (May 21 to

June 20) While home is your main focus this week, new issues in the workplace need your attention as well.

Take things step by step.

Pressures ease in time for weekend fun.

CANCER (June 21 to July

of.

22) Be less rigid when handling a relationship problem. You might believe you’re in the right, but try to open your mind to the possibilities of facts you’re currently not aware

(November 22 to December 21) Your social life is on the upswing, and the only problem is deciding which invitations to accept. Enjoy yourself before settling down for some serious work next week.

CAPRICORN

(December 22 to January 19) With your creative aspects on high, you might want to restart your work on that novel or painting you put aside. Your efforts will bring a surge in your self-esteem.

AQUARIUS

LEO (July 23 to August 22)

Leos and Leonas run at a hectic pace throughout much of the week. But by the weekend, the Lions’ Dens become a purrrfect place for you Fine Felines to relax in.

VIRGO (August 23 to

September 22) Change is favored early in the week. This should make it easier for you to reassess your plans for handling a troubling professional relationship. Good luck.

(January 20 to February 18) While you’re generous with others, be sure you’re not overlooking your own needs.

Take time to assess your situation and make adjustments where necessary.

PISCES

(February 19 to March 20) Being applauded for your achievement is great.

But watch out that you don’t start acting like a star. It could lose you valuable support with your next project.

BORN THIS WEEK Your strong belief in justice, along with your leadership qualities, help you protect the rights of others.

30 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | MAR. 29- APR. 4, 2018 | 31

32 | MAR. 29 - APR. 4, 2018 | CLCLT.COM