Gaston Alive June 2019 by David Hamrick

Walking the Streets At Night... With my dog p8

Tequilla, Mezcal, and the Worm

p10

Interior Design: Classic Design or Hot Trends? p12

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From the Publisher Our weekly newsletter/eBlast has taken off like rocket-thanks for all the kind comments and support! You may have noticed we are much more active on Facebook and Instagram as well…we feature some of the content from our print magazine, plus a lot of content that is unique to online. And don’t worry; the print magazine isn’t going anywhere- except in your mailbox! Scope it out- follow us on Instagram (@gastonalive), or you can sign up at gastonalive.com. Just scroll down to find the pop up box and we’ll hook you up! All the best, David

featured this month

Walking the StreetS at night... With my dog By Ben dUngan

teqUilla, mezcal, and the Worm By matt mUgavero

interior deSign: claSSic deSign or hot trendS? By Brie hayS

on the cover Gaston alive

Feel like

You AgAin

Walking the Streets At Night... With my dog p8

Tequilla, Mezcal, and the Worm

p10

Interior Design: Classic Design or Hot Trends? p12

gastonalive.com

The delightful painting on the cover is by Jean Cauthen, entitled “The Six Gentlemen”. This work was inspired by the painter Ni Zan, a 13th Century Chinese painter. The painting image courtesy of Emily Andress and Awaken Gallery in Mount Holly. Reach them at (980) 277-8527, or online at www.awakengallery.com

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Gaston Alive Magazine is published monthly in the Gaston County, NC area by Art FX Media. All editorial contained within is the property of the publisher and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. The publisher accepts no liability for the accuracy of statements made by the writers or advertisers. ©2019 Art FX Media.

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We’ve listened to the feedback from our readers, and while the print issue isn’t going anywhere (besides your mailboxes), we are launching an online, weekly newsletter to spotlight Gaston County events, articles from the magazine, area partners, and other happenings in our fantastic part of the state!

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Walking the StreetS at night...

BY BEN DUNGAN

With my dog

I walk the streets at night. You can typically find me out there between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. There’s not much going on at this time, as you’d probably expect. You can hear the crickets chirping and occasionally you’ll hear the faint sounds of vehicles driving up and down Highway 321.

I’m probably the only person outside

at this hour. This is not because this is where I want to be, but rather because Asbury needs to be.

Asbury is a 6-year-old English Pointer, named after Asbury Park, a city in New Jersey. He’s a 53-pound white dog with brown patches and splotches over his body. They say he’s a hunting dog, but the only thing he hunts these days is a place to

lay his head.

That is, until it becomes the middle of the night. That’s when he needs to go outside to use the bathroom. I get it - when you need to go, you need to go. It’s just the timing of it all that just seems a bit inconvenient. For me. He doesn’t mind at all. He doesn’t have to wake up and go to work in the morning like the rest of us. Before Asbury, there was Ginger, my feisty little shih tzu. She was much smaller in stature, but large in personality. With her, you’d never find me walking the streets in the middle of the night for her to use the bathroom. If she needed to go, she’d take care of it herself. She’d find her favorite spot in the house and just hit that. I don’t know which is worse. At least Asbury tells me when he needs to go. Ginger would just sneak off and I’d hope and pray she’d hit at least one of the pee pads I had laid out for her. Therein lies the problem - no matter how many pee pads you put down, there’s always an edge of the pad,

8 gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive

Cesar says, “you may not get the dog you want, but you always get the dog you need.” Maybe dogs are put here on this earth to train us - to help us live a better life than we’re currently living. Dogs age seven times faster than humans. We like to say “life is short”, but to them, life really is short. They just inherently know how to make every moment count.

which means there’s always a chance him over so he could whip Ginger she could miss. into shape. But that’s life with a dog. Just when you think you have all the answers, they change the questions. Each dog comes with its own set of questions. Before you go out and get a new dog, you need to forget everything you know about dogs. It’s a clean slate every time. Dogs do what dogs do. Unless your Cesar Millan. And I am clearly not him. Cesar Millan is a dog trainer that broke into the mainstream in 2004 with his TV show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan. It was so popular that it ran for nine years and was nominated for two Emmy Awards. Cesar Millan was a household name. Or maybe I should say, he was a household name in my parent’s house. My mom would always tell me about Cesar’s work with problem dogs. She’d say ‘Cesar says this’ and ‘Cesar says that’. I wanted to tell her to send

But the reality is, he’d really be whipping me into shape. He may be billed as The Dog Whisperer, but deep down, he’s really The Human Whisperer. Dogs teach us so much, that sometimes we need someone like a Cesar Millan to show us that.

Sometimes we need dogs to show us how to be more present - to live more fully in the moment. Maybe we need them to remind us the importance of forgiveness and moving on. Or just maybe, we need to be reminded to play at least once a day. Or to just stop and relax. Take a nap. That’s what dogs do. And while they may also drag us around in the middle of the night, or have us cleaning up their messes around the house, they ultimately give us much more than they take. They make us stop and smell the roses. Or in my case, the “deposit” they leave by the side of the road...in the middle of the night. And we love them for it.

Let’s go WaLking gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive 9

one Tequila, Two Tequilla...

By Matt Mugavero

Not Your College Tequila Don’t even try to deny it! We all have them buried in our closet! You, I and the neighbor next door have at least one of those completely ridiculous, insanely childish, and totally outrageous stories that go hand in hand with a certain type of liquor. Yes, I am talking about that liquid fool’s gold: “tequila”. Why do we get so deeply involved with a bottle of tequila and end up regretting it? Well, it is a simple answer. You actually think that you are tough enough, but in reality, you are not, nobody is. The tequila in the middle of these outrageous stories is usually so bad and so offensive that it rivals most embalming fluids. It is made of the poorest quality ingredients and with some very questionable tactics. The liquid poison is most always packaged in a cheap plastic container made specifically to save on cost and designed to bounce off the hardwood floor when dropped, which is certain to happen as soon as the brain slowly ignores the bodies extremities. 10 gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive

Since the booze tastes so horribly bad, we dare one another to handle the 1.5oz without hesitation or any lame excuses. We down the liquid with such bravery, all the while holding a stern appearance and praying to our God that one of us will soon quit all this nonsense. One after another, the nasty liquid chases down your throat, never considering the POWER that this liquid fool’s gold packs. A minimum of 80 proof adds up and continues to add up, without any regard to fundamental mathematics of the human body. That is until…BAMMMMM, it hits you. “Down Goes Frazier!” says a famous sports caster. You make the personal and public oath to swear off this nasty stuff to all that care to listen. We have all done it, said it, and declared it. You build the strength to kneel before the Gods proclaiming, “NEVER AGAIN, NEVER AGAIN,” as these commonly repeated words echo off the white porcelain bowl. How tough are you now?

The Good Stuff By now, you are chuckling at one of your very own bad tequila stories and strengthening your oath to “never again” drink tequila. But please allow me to introduce some food for thought and perhaps get you to reconsider. Your horrible memories of the morning after headache and the all-day nausea are most definitely caused by the cheap, mis-represented, bottom shelf tequila often celebrated at college gatherings. What if I was to tell you that quality tequila made from the best ingredients may treat your body a bit better and perhaps help you to avoid the dreaded hangover. That’s right. Higher quality tequila enjoyed within moderation will not give you that miserable morning after experience. When you explore top shelf tequila, you will experience so many different expressions of agave and the interesting nuances of how a master distiller will process and age his/her distillate.

Adult Tequila First and foremost, REAL tequila must be made from distilling the plant core (pina or heart) of the blue agave plant. Blue agave looks like a cactus with spiked hair but it’s not officially a cactus. It resides in a floral category specifically named Monocots. Unfortunately, the best blue weber agave takes up to 8 years to mature before harvesting. This means the good tequila is becoming more and more difficult to get. It also must be fully processed, “farm to bottle” from the state of Jalisco, think Champagne region of France. There are also a few other municipalities in Mexico that have a license to process the real thing, however the Cartel must get their cut first before any tequila hits the streets. I am kidding of course. Good tequila is always labeled with an official declaration of 100% Puro Agave on the front of the bottle. Bad tequila companies will try and trick you by stating “Blue Agave” on the bottle but fail to post the ever important 100% alongside. Sub- standard tequila will have 51% Agave Juice printed on the bottle in attempt to establish credibility. However, the manufacturer will then add fillers, coloring, rum, sugar water, vodka or whatever is under the kitchen sink to fill the bottle and still call it tequila. Really, no joke, if the bottle does not say 100% Blue Agave, then you could be drinking 49% of just about anything from Mexico. The next thing you should know about tequila is that it may be good for you, within moderation of course. Researchers say the minerals in blue agave can help the body to better absorb calcium and magnesium both of which are great for strengthening of bones. Scientists have also discovered that the agave in tequila can help to keep blood sugar levels low, which is great for the battle against diabetes. Similarly, agave produces a hormone that tricks your stomach into feeling like it’s full for a longer period. This will help keep the late-night food cravings away and those unnecessary calories that pile on after midnight. Furthermore, Mexican doctors were recommending a tequila cocktail (.5 oz tequila blanco, .5 oz agave nectar, .5 oz orange juice) to fight colds not too long ago before modern medicine came along. So, we can all forget that “apple a day, keeps the doctor away” slogan. Just drink good tequila. “A shot a day will keep the doctor away”. >>Article continued online: www.gastonalive.com/2019/05/one-tequilla-two-tequilla gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive 11

Trends We Can embraCe

While Instagram and Pinterest can be a great source of inspiration, it can be risky to make big decisions based on what is â&#x20AC;&#x153;hotâ&#x20AC;? at the moment if making changes will be costly when you tire of the look. But some trends are not a big investment and based on solid design principals, and these are the ones I like to follow.

12 gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive

It’s interesting to note that as our lives get more focused on technology and dependent on screens, what’s trending at the moment is in direct contrast to that. We’re seeing a big return to nature with plants, natural wood tones, deep greens and blues in wallpaper and cabinetry and lighter, warmer walls. Maybe you want to incorporate a few of these ideas into your home, not because they are trendy, but because they’re classic design ideas that just happen to be hot right now.

Bring The Outside In According to the EPA, we spend 90% of our lives indoors. If you find that as depressing as I do, it’s no wonder we want to bring the outdoors inside. Plants not only brighten the room, they have so many health benefits! They improve air quality by removing pollutants and increasing oxygen levels. They are also totally having their moment in interior décor and let’s hope they’re here to stay. All kinds of plants are popping up in rooms all over Instagram. If you find Fiddle leaf figs too ubiquitous, try one of the new “it” plants: the rubber plant. The fig’s much hardier cousin, ficus elastica can come as a plant or a tree and the stronger foliage makes it work even in high traffic areas. Want something smaller? If you have enough light and a spray bottle, succulents are still popular and fairly easy to keep happy. Try the Boston, Kimberly or Macho fern; all fabulous plants for our Southern porches as they thrive on humidity. If you bring one inside, as I love to do, realize they are prima donnas and require frequent light watering and the right light. And if you have a terrible success rate with keeping indoor plants alive, there’s always the snake plant. You might even go faux! They won’t clean your air but they look a lot more convincing now than the faux plants a few years ago. Regardless of the trends, any plant will literally bring new life to your home.

Lighten Up (Your Walls) A few years ago, everything was gray. Gray sofas, gray floors, gray fabrics, gray tile. Most décor trends tend to last about ten years and we are at the end of the gray trend. This doesn’t mean you need to banish gray from your home, but the colder grays have done their time and are being replaced by warmer, creamier tones. There is a definite desire to freshen things up by lightening up our walls, but few homes have the light needed to carry off art gallery white. A great compromise can be found in the creams and the “grieges,” lovely soft shades that almost read white but have enough color that they don’t feel cold. These lighter colors feel refreshing and are the perfect backdrop for the warmer, richer greens and blues we are seeing on cabinetry and in accessories.

Wallpaper Is Back (and Better!) For a long time, wallpaper has taken a backseat in the design world. But it’s back with a vengeance and so many companies are doing great things to improve application and removal so it isn’t such a nightmare when you are ready for a change. After paint, wallpaper is the easiest way to personalize a room and give it character. There are so many gorgeous patterns and colors now and “granny chic” is reigning! There are chintz patterns with unexpected color combinations. And even when wallpaper is more traditional, it can be paired with modern furniture to create a fresh look. Or try a mural, a series of panels of wallpaper that form a scene or a picture, to create a huge piece of artwork and a focal point for your room. I recently installed a gorgeous mural in our living room that set the palette for our entire home. Feeling squeamish about all the bold color and pattern? Start with a powder room – these smaller spaces that you don’t spend a lot of time in are the perfect place to experiment with something dramatic. I hope this has inspired you to get outside your comfort zone and try something new. Or at least bring a plant or two into your home. I’m not a huge fan of following the latest trends when it comes to home décor, but when they’re good, classic ideas that just happen to be hot right now, there’s nothing wrong with following the crowd! Brie Hays is a certified Interior Designer and True Color Expert. She is available for design work and paint consultations through Harlow Hays Design Co. Follow her on Facebook or Instagram for decorating tips, or check out www.harlowhaysdesign.com gastonalive.com | facebook.com/gastonalive 13

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