Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill July 27, 2022
Ana by You ng,
Catching Cat a Break Local leaders outlaw euthanasia for the county's 60,000 community cats
Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 30
Tim Heidecker performs at The Carolina Theatre in Durham on Sunday, 31, p. 16 PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA
CONTENTS NEWS 4
Retiring incumbents on Wake County's school board explain why they're passing the baton. BY JASMINE GALLUP 6 Local preservationists lament a missed opportunity to save historic houses in Erwin Mill Village. BY AKIYA DILLON 8 Hayti Reborn leader and NC Central professor Henry McKoy takes a job with the Biden administration. BY THOMASI MCDONALD 10 DJ Rogers, Durham's new poet laureate, empowers people to tell their own stories. BY MADDIE WRAY 12 Durham leaders vote for a plan to trap, neuter, vaccinate, and release the county's stray cats. BY ANA YOUNG
ARTS & CULTURE 13
Her Take: Raleigh emcee Ty 4 Life talks about falling in love with rap and adopting a "conscious gangster" mindset. BY KYESHA JENNINGS 14 The Momversations Project documents the state of motherhood in the United States. BY BYRON WOODS 16 "The act of seeing somebody fail can be very funny if they're failing for selfish reasons or slipping on a banana peel, metaphorically," says comedian Tim Heidecker. BY ZACK SMITH
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BACK TA L K
Last week our summer intern Mariana Fabian wrote about a developer’s plans to redevelop Seaboard Station and to replace the historic train station with a 12-story parking deck to serve two 20-story towers on either side. The developer, Turnbridge Equities, has since updated its plans and says it hopes to preserve the station, but some residents are skeptical that the new conditions don’t go far enough to guarantee preservation alongside the new construction. We will have an update on the situation soon. Meanwhile, our readers had a lot of thoughts about Mariana’s story.
From reader PATTY MOYER: “My heart broke to read this stupid move to lose another piece of Raleigh. My grandfather worked at that station until his retirement in the early 60’s. Visiting my grandparents in Raleigh is why I fell in love with this city. But now it is barely recognizable.” From reader JUDY SCHNEIDER: “Raleigh has already lost so many of the spaces that lend character to a city, small shops downtown replaced with generic multi-story buildings; locally-owned restaurants and sandwich shops, like Sadlack’s, gone, and we’re soon to lose the iconic Char Grill. The lovely Seaboard complex will turn into another congested lot of high-rises, because Raleigh’s mayor and city council have never met a development proposal they didn’t like. Developers (even local developers like Kane) will always default to maximizing profit over community, esthetic, and historic concerns.” From reader EDITH DICKINSON: “Raleigh is quickly losing its Architectural Heritage by demolishing all our historical buildings/landmarks that give us (Raleigh) our special identity. It is absolutely a travesty. We must protect the historical parts of Raleigh (for instance Seaboard Station and Hayes Barton Community). This isn’t about build back better. This is about preserving our heritage!” And from reader ANDREA AZCÁRATE: “Thank you so much for your story about Seaboard Station. Myself and lots of friends love having the nursery there. It has so much character! What or how can we help to save it? Maybe a follow up article with information regarding this would be helpful.” The answer to Andrea’s question: write to the Raleigh City Council members and urge them to vote for Turnbridge Equities’ rezoning request on the condition that the company preserves the train station (or integrates it into its new design). This has been done in Raleigh before, to good effect: see the Dillon building in the Warehouse District.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DANE PIEDT AND ABHIRAM BOLISETTY
Morrisville
15 MINUTES Dane Piedt, 18, and Abhiram Bolisetty, 18 Bowlers for the Morrisville Raptors, a minor league cricket team in the Triangle BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com
How did you get into cricket? Bolisetty: My parents were watching the 2011 World Cup, and when India won I started getting into it. There was a local league and I started playing and it took off from there. Piedt: Being from South Africa, you play all kinds of sports, and cricket is probably one of the biggest back home. My friends and I were playing in the streets. My dad saw that I had a bit of ability at age five or six. He used to toss balls to me in the backyard. I’ve been playing all my life.
How big is cricket here in America? Piedt: I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of cricket played in the U.S. I didn’t expect it to be as big as it is. The Indian population was surprising to me, too. Wherever the Indian population goes, no disrespect, cricket goes. You look at certain parts of the country, there are hot spots for cricket.
What strategies do you use in cricket? Piedt: Cricket’s all about matchups. Matchups and conditions play a massive part. So it’s not like, if you had a bad game, you’re going to leave [Bolisetty] out just for that bad game. We’re saying, “Well, the conditions are favoring spin bowlers” or “There’s a matchup we want to try so we can nullify [an opposing player].”
If you compare it to American sports, it’s like if you put a cornerback on a wide receiver. You’re going to try to get [Jalen] Ramsey on [the other team’s] best wide receiver, so we can have our number-two or -three player look after the rest.
As a bowler, what is your role in the match? Bolisetty: It’s a big circular field, right? So certain guys will hit the ball in certain spots on the field. If we know that they’re strong, picking it up off their legs, then we won’t bowl there. We’d rather get [the ball] away from them. The basic idea is looking at where the batter likes to score and trying to nullify [his skill set]. Piedt: I’m an off-spin all-rounder, a bowling all-rounder. The positions you have in baseball, like outfield, center field, first base, we don’t really have that. We have sort of skill sets that we go by. I started as a batter. Eventually, that’s how my career ended up going, I was a spin bowler who could bat. [In cricket], you’re never just pigeonholed into something.
So are there different kinds of balls you throw, like in baseball? Piedt: Yeah, there are variations [on throws] you mess around with over time. You’re not allowed to bend your arm more than 15 degrees, so you’ve got to keep it straight and rotate over. That’s basically the laws of the game. W Read more online at indyweek.com. INDYweek.com
July 27, 2022
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Wake County
Passing the Baton Three Wake County school board members say now’s the time to move on. BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com
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Heather Scott
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUBJECT
Christine Kushner
Jim Martin 4
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUBJECT
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUBJECT
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wo years ago, Wake County Board of Education member Jim Martin decided not to run for reelection. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck. “I actually had not been planning to run two years ago, but I was asked to help bring some stability to the board,” Martin says. “[Now], I feel like it’s time to pass the baton. I do not believe in strict term limits, [but] I do believe no one is indispensable. [Governing is] a relay race.” Martin, who was first elected in 2011, is one of Wake County’s longest-serving school board members. And it’s for exactly that reason he decided to leave his seat open for newcomers, he says. When Martin first ran for office, he planned on serving no more than a decade. As of today, it’s been 11 years. Martin isn’t the only school board member stepping down before the November election. He is one of five members to bow out of the race this year, leaving the school board poised for a major political shift. Martin (District 5), Christine Kushner (District 6), Heather Scott (District 1), Roxie Cash (District 3), and Karen Carter (District 9) have all declined to run for reelection, leaving five seats open. Despite popular belief, each incumbent has their own reasons for leaving, and it’s not the increase in hostility, name-calling, and threats at school board meetings. Although voters seem more divided than ever, Martin says the atmosphere surrounding local politics hasn’t changed much. “Frankly, the craziness is not a whole lot different than when we ran back in 2011,” he says. “There was a lot of hostility, and that was a very controversial race. I think issues change. Why people get upset changes, but there was a lot of instability in [2011]. I had been planning to pass the baton long before this current wave of partisan intensity flared.” Martin says partisan politics first started infiltrating the school board around 2009. It was then that national issues became talking points in local races. In his view, partisan politics has no place in the work of the school board. The school board should be nonpartisan and members should be “thinking about education,” he says. “The 2009 election was really, for the first time, [when] the Wake County Board of Education became a political tool of a particular extreme end of a political party,” Martin says. “That’s what created the friction that is, sadly, repeating itself.” Today, the conversation dominating the school board race is about “parent rights,” an umbrella term that encompasses efforts to ban books with Black, brown, and LGBTQ per-
spectives; campaigns to prevent issues of race from being taught in schools; and anti-mask, anti-vaccine sentiment. The newfound movement was born during the COVID pandemic, as some parents objected to school closures and the health requirements put on their children. Today, it’s bloomed into an all-out culture war, including hot-button political topics discussed nationwide. At least nine candidates for the Wake County school board, including one running in every district, espouse “parent rights” on their websites. It’s a position that’s worrying several current school board members. “I’m really concerned, to be perfectly honest,” says Scott, the District 1 representative. “It really concerns me that in a midterm year, at a time when a lot of people are feeling disenfranchised … a low-turnout election does have the potential to put people in school boards here in Wake and across the country who are not actually supporters of public education. It terrifies me, as a parent.” Criticism from parent rights activists was one small factor in Kushner’s decision to depart, the 11-year board member in District 6 wrote in an op-ed for The News & Observer. “Too many people, under a guise of ‘parent rights’ with no mention of parent responsibilities, are playing games to undermine public education and public school educators. These critics create false narratives around public schools and launch personal attacks against elected officials,” Kushner wrote. “I have endured two years of these angry, inwardly-focused critics. At times, that criticism has seemed overwhelming and isolating. That is one reason why I am now passing the baton—I see this intense and rewarding public service as a relay, not a marathon.” Polarization is not good for the community, Kushner adds in an interview with the INDY. She’s hoping new candidates can address that divisiveness, especially since they don’t have the same history of conflict with some community members.
What’s next for these political leaders? The factors driving incumbents to step down from the school board are similar—some say it’s time for new voices; some say they want to focus on their professional careers; and some say they want to spend more time with their families. Martin, an NC State University chemistry professor, says he wants to focus on his academic work as he leaves
Endorsements by outgoing incumbents In District 1, Heather Scott is endorsing Ben Clapsaddle.
In District 5, Jim Martin is endorsing Lynn Edmonds.
the school board. For the past 11 years, he’s essentially been working two full-time jobs, he says. “Over this last decade, I have made some remarkable discoveries in my laboratory,” he says. “It’s fundamental science, and I need time to write that work. I have gotten some of it written and published, but I need the time.” Scott and Kushner each said the health of family members was a big factor in their decision not to run for reelection. “[My parents’] health has been a struggle; it’s been a concern,” Scott says. “So that’s been in the back of my head, thinking about another four years in office and the impact that would have on my family … and honestly, knowing that the person who serves in this role needs to be very committed and involved. I could not say with certainty I was going to be able to give this district the time and energy it deserves for another four years.” Kushner says her frustration with the state legislature also contributed to her decision to “pass the baton.” She plans on staying active in politics as an advocate for public education. “It’s too important [not to],” Kushner says. “The state needs to fund [the statewide Leandro mandate to fully fund public schools] and fulfill its obligations of equity across the state. When I first came on the board, the state portion of our budget was around 70 percent, now it’s 52 percent. “It’s frustrating to sit on a local board and not have control over [the school] calendar, not be getting the state funding that is constitutionally mandated, not having the flexibility to do what you know is right for the children in the district.”
The (real) issues of today One of the biggest challenges the school board faces is interference from the state, Martin says. Over the years, the state legislature has weighed in on everything from school calendars to class size to the curriculum. Recently, a state commission proposed a new teacher licensure and compensation model that would base pay on performance, such as test scores
In District 6, Christine Kushner is endorsing Sam Hershey.
or evaluation, instead of on number of years of experience. Paying teachers based on performance gives resources to schools that are already advantaged and hinders teachers in underresourced schools, Martin says. Not to mention the fact that teacher and staff pay has already endured major cuts and is lagging behind inflation. “[Teacher pay] has never really been at the level it should be,” Martin says. “We should be having a scenario where my best students want to be teachers, but that’s not what we have. So salary and benefits are a continued challenge.” Kushner agrees, saying staffing should be a priority for the next school board. Likewise, Scott says new board members should focus on recruiting and retaining strong educators as well as support staff like social workers, psychologists, and school counselors. “When our teachers have time and feel comfortable building relationships and have the means to engage with their families, our students are the ones who benefit,” Scott says. “But you cannot do that if you don’t have a fully staffed school. You can’t do that when you don’t have support personnel in place.” Infrastructure is another growing problem, according to Martin. He says the board needs to find more money to renovate and rebuild aging schools, many of which were constructed in the 1990s. Voters will have a chance to weigh in on the issue in November, with a $530.7 million school construction bond on the ballot. If approved, it would help the district build five new schools and renovate seven existing schools. As new school board members take their seats, Scott wants to remind them to get to know the community they serve. The most important thing, she says, is to have conversations with the people who live in the district and to remember you don’t just serve them; you also serve the entire county. “[Board members have] got to be involved,” Scott says. “They have to listen, and they have to be confident when they come back to that board table with their colleagues that they’re advocating for the needs of this district.” W INDYweek.com
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Durham
Vanishing History Local preservationists lament a missed opportunity to save 10 mill houses in Erwin Mill Village. BY AKIYA DILLON backtalk@indyweek.com
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n April 22, a cryptic Craigslist advertisement titled “Durham FREE Historic Houses (10) YOU MOVE: Act fast!” rattled Durham Facebook groups and email inboxes. Local preservationists quickly identified the properties as remnants of the once prosperous Erwin Mill Village— parcels recently acquired by Wood Partners, an Atlanta-based developer and manager of high-end apartments. Three days later, the listing was flagged for insufficient information and removed, leaving unanswered the question of who posted the ad—and what would become of the houses. It’s been three months since that ad and the story of the homes has come into focus, revealing an unusual tale of preservation, bulldozers, and the tension between old and new Durham. By July 11, the 10 historic homes on Rutherford and Bolton Streets have dwindled to seven. The other three, 738, 736, and 732 Rutherford, were heaps of deformed roofing, fractured wooden planks, and forgotten household necessities. The sides of the remaining structures were tagged “Abate” in sloppy magenta spray paint with a number assigning their place in the demolition timeline—a timeline set to be complete by the end of July. For Tom Miller, president of Preservation Durham, the nonprofit that has led efforts to protect the houses, the story of the Erwin Mill Village homes represents a missed opportunity. “Whether Wood Partners was responsible for the Craigslist ad or not—it wasn’t a bad idea,” says Miller. “Wouldn’t things have been better if Wood Partners reached out to us back when they first got control of the property? Then, they could have made themselves local heroes.”
A window into Durham’s working-class past To the average eye, the mill houses on Rutherford and Bolton Streets are not remarkable. But to Miller and Chris Laws, the remnants of the old Erwin Mill Village illustrate Durham’s working-class origins. 6
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A bulldozer demolishes a home at 738 Rutherford Street So when Laws saw the Craigslist ad on April 25— emailed to him by Cathleen Turner, regional director of Preservation North Carolina—he took notice. Laws opened the email, clicked, and found a broken link. But for Laws, a fourth-generation Durhamite with familial ties to the mill, the headline and the words “act fast” lingered. He and Miller grew determined to save the old mill houses. “In historic preservation, it is seductive to find the great man’s mansion and save it. Who doesn’t like that?” says Miller. “We get to experience a bit of HGTV in our neighborhoods. But that’s not always where the history is.” “Durham’s history is in these worker houses,” says Miller. “A home is where life happens: where mom and dad lived, where the piano lessons occurred, where kids did homework, where people grew old. Some families have lived in these homes for over a century. We need to refocus our energy on these stories.” The mill homes at Rutherford and Bolton tell the story of a vanishing Durham. In the late 19th century, cotton magnate William Erwin envisioned a self-contained community for textile mill workers in West Durham. So he built a village: 440 residences, a company store, an auditorium, a playground, a zoo, and more. In 1986, West Durham—including the mill village area—was named to the National Register of Historic Districts—a designation that recognizes historical significance but grants no regulatory protections. Today, there are 25 to 30 surviving mill houses in Durham—including the seven parcels at Rutherford and Bolton, all that remains of Erwin Mill Village.
PHOTO BY MADDIE WRAY
To Laws, the mill village’s history is personal. Laws’s grandfather, a mill worker, attended Durham High School during the day and worked the third shift at night. Every morning he returned to his humble abode on 14th (now Rutherford) Street. With a swipe of a finger, Laws leafs through memories stored in his iPhone photo gallery. He beams as he shares a digitized home video: a shaky frame that captures Laws, an infant at the time, and his grandfather lounging in the side yard of their family home in the mill village. He swipes again, stopping at a photo that shows dozens of people, dressed in winter attire and crammed in a narrow mill house kitchen. “At times, there would be 83 people in these little houses for communal gatherings,” says Laws. “Two generations removed, we’ve continued the annual Laws Christmas party tradition—a tradition that started in this mill village.” The modest homes will be replaced with a six-story apartment complex of 336 units. The development is the latest of many new apartment buildings springing up across Durham in recent years. Rents for the apartments have not yet been set, a spokesman for Wood Partners said. When asked if the development will include any affordable units, Wood Partners did not respond. Rents at a neighboring Woods Partners property, Station Nine, range from $1,583 a month for a small one-bedroom unit to $2,937 for a two-bedroom unit. Laws sighs at the idea of another high-end apartment building in the Bull City.
Missed connections By late May, Laws and Miller became concerned that they had not heard back from Wood Partners. On May 21, they called the firm’s branch at Chapel Hill, where their calls went to a greetingless voicemail box. They left several voicemail messages all saying essentially the same thing: We are interested in the possibility of saving the historic houses on your property at Bolton and Rutherford Streets in Durham. We would like to talk to you about the homes and how we might work together to save some of them. No call back. So on May 25, Laws decided to visit the Chapel Hill branch himself and met briefly with the branch’s managing director, Caitlin Shelby. “She didn’t have much time to talk. But she told me that they did not put up the Craigslist ad. She said she did not know where it came from.” According to Laws, Shelby said that demolition of the homes would begin in a few days (it wouldn’t actually begin for another month). Laws offered his business card and personal cell number, and Shelby promised to follow up, Laws says. He left the office optimistic. Meanwhile, Miller made inquiries with groups that might be able to use the homes, such as Durham Community Land Trustees. The affordable housing nonprofit expressed interest in discussing the options, said its asset manager Sherry Taylor. “It would take a good amount of funding,” Taylor said. “The trust would need a good assessment of the structures. They may need to be renovated. But, we’re interested in figuring out what the possibilities could be.” Laws and Miller were not naive. They have long known the hurdles associated with moving a historic structure. Still, they hoped—at least—for a meeting and conversation with Wood Partners. “I mean, we’re not kidding ourselves,” Miller said in early July. “You don’t just
“Yes, we need places to house Durham’s growing population. But we also need to address that people are being displaced by luxury development.” come around and pick up a house. You have to get all kinds of permissions. And the power company goes nuts! The railway hates it. It takes time. But if there were a way that these folks could work with us, we would be delighted. And I don’t see how it could hurt them.”
Salvaging a bit of history The weeks ticked by, and Preservation Durham did not hear from Shelby or Wood Partners. On July 1, Miller and Laws mailed a letter to Wood Partners’ corporate office in Atlanta. On July 6, the first of the 10 homes, 738 Rutherford, toppled. Locals in the Teardowns of Durham Facebook group shared photos of the once neat and quiet street, now marred with red caution tape and demolition equipment, framed by sad and angry emojis. The next day, a fretful Laws drove to Rutherford Street, hoping to, at long last, discuss the homes with somebody with hands on the project. He pulled up in front of 736 Rutherford, where a sunburned contractor in a fluorescent green T-shirt with the Wood Partners logo directed excavation machinery to remove scraps. Laws told the contractor about the community campaign to save the houses. It was the first the contractor had heard of it. Preservation Durham works with partners who renovate historic buildings, and those projects often require using vintage materials. Laws asked the contractor for permission to collect architectural salvage— windows, doors, and doorknobs—and the
contractor agreed to check into it. “If we were able to collect windows, for example, that would be helpful,” says Laws. “And it would give new life to another space.” On Friday, July 8, 736 Rutherford was demolished. The remains were trucked away, leaving an empty lot. The next day, in response to an inquiry from The 9th Street Journal, Shelby, of Wood Partners, released a statement: “As part of our commitment to positively impacting the communities we serve, Wood Partners is always happy to coordinate with our neighbors in Durham, and we are open to speaking with Preservation Durham in response to their interest in potentially salvaging materials/sections from the mill houses prior to the completion of demolition in the coming week. While we did not participate in any way in posting the previous Craig’s List advertisement, we will aim to keep the community abreast of the latest developments surrounding this project and will share information regarding intended plans for the complex via the property website as those become available.” On July 11, 732 was also bulldozed, leaving another empty lot. On July 13, Laws finally spoke with Wood Partners. “It was a pleasant conversation,” he said. “She said she would talk to the site superintendent about pulling some things. From what I understand, someone from the firm will contact me—but I do not know when that will be.” On July 14, interior doors, a kitchen counter, and a box of light fixtures appeared on the front porches at 711 and 721 Bolton Street. On July 15, bulldozers clawed ground on the three newly leveled parcels at Rutherford Street. Discarded red caution tape draped from electric poles and trees. The seven remaining structures awaited demolition. Laws still doesn’t know who posted the Craigslist ad, he said. He wishes things could have ended differently. “I just wish we could have effective dialogue,” Laws says. “I don’t think they understand how important these places are to the community. They are physical reminders of our heritage. “I’m sad, but I can’t mourn. There is still a lot of history at peril in Durham. So, we will press on. Hopefully, we learn something from this, and we will be better for it.” W
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“Yes, we need places to house Durham’s growing population,” says Laws. “But we also need to address that people are being displaced by luxury development.” Laws and Miller were both steeped in the mill village’s history. So when they learned that the Rutherford Street houses were coming down, they were determined to do something. Miller emailed Wood Partners, hoping to discuss the mill homes. Weeks went by, and the email was unanswered.
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This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and The 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. INDYweek.com
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Durham The remains of Fayette Place PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
The Bigger Picture Hayti Reborn leader Henry McKoy accepts an appointment with the Biden administration. BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com
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urham leaders closed the door on Henry McKoy’s Hayti Reborn, a vision of an affordable housing, business, and educational complex on a 20-acre parcel of land in the shadow of downtown that would give marginalized residents more voice in how the community is developed. That door closed in Durham, but then, the sky opened up for McKoy, the departing director of NC Central University’s entrepreneurial program. This week, McKoy stepped aside from his leadership role with the revitalization program and his faculty position at NC Central to accept a presidential appointment from the White House as part of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure and climate team. As the INDY previously reported, officials with the Durham Housing Authority (DHA) said McKoy was not qualified to develop the long-fallow 20-acre Fayette Place in the historically Black Hayti District south of downtown. DHA didn’t even invite McKoy’s Hayti Reborn team in for an interview. But there’s a vast chasm of difference in how Biden officials view the qualification tools McKoy brings to the development table. On Tuesday, McKoy began oversight of a nearly $10 billion budget with 1,200 employees when he started as the inaugural director of the Office of State and Community Energy Programs, a newly created division in the U.S. Department of Energy. 8
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Fayette Place’s 20 acres notwithstanding, as part of a new White House initiative, about 40 percent of that $10 billion allocated to the newly created federal division headed by McKoy will target communities that are historically disadvantaged, marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution—in other words, underfunded neighborhoods all over the country just like the Hayti District. “Go figure it,” McKoy told the INDY last week when asked about local affordable housing leaders’ perception of his qualifications versus his new role in assisting with the development of places like Fayette Place all over the country. In a press release, McKoy, a Fayetteville native, said the Biden administration’s goals are closely aligned with the goals of Hayti Reborn. “The work that I will be doing nationally is what I had hoped that I could point to Durham for, as a model,’’ McKoy said in the press release. “Unfortunately we are not there yet. But I am hopeful that we can get there. I have always felt that Durham has the potential to be a model equitable city for racial and economic equity.” More than a half century has passed since a dramatically misnamed federal urban renewal effort during the 1960s and early 1970s destroyed 4,000 homes and 500 busi-
nesses in the neighborhood to make room for construction of Highway 147. Last year, during the nation’s inaugural Juneteenth celebration, McKoy’s hybrid housing-commercial-education complex vision for the Fayetteville Street corridor deeply resonated with stakeholders in the neighborhood who are concerned about the growing specter of gentrification, issues of equity, and whether the community will retain its historical character. This year, the plans were shot down rather unceremoniously when DHA’s chief executive officer Anthony Scott, in an early March email to McKoy, told him that Hayti Reborn was among the four finalists to develop Fayette Place. But the Black-led developer had received “the lowest aggregate score, by a substantial margin, among the four respondents.” Scott added that the Hayti Reborn team “did not demonstrate a sufficient level of experience in relation to the objectives” mandated in the DHA’s request for development proposals. DHA officials instead announced in January that the agency had chosen two developers—Durham Development Partners and the Atlanta-based Integral Group, LLC—for the $470 million construction of residential units across three downtown locations: Fayette Place in the Hayti District, Forest Hills Heights, and the county-owned land surrounding the current DHA offices. One month later, Hayti Reborn officials responded by filing a protest letter that said DHA’s approach to redevelop Hayti will only reinforce the gentrification already taking place throughout the district. “The developers [chosen by DHA] aren’t even from Durham,” McKoy said in June while speaking to an audience attending a short-film festival at the Hayti Heritage Center. McKoy told the INDY that Biden officials first reached out to him in January to “gauge his interest in joining the administration.” He says his interest in the appointment was bolstered when “shortly thereafter, the fight between the DHA and Hayti Reborn began over the highest and best use of Fayette Place and the right of community members to have their voices heard before final decisions were made on the land.” McKoy, in the press release, added that at the heart of the community’s fight are concerns that redevelopment in the community “doesn’t displace its residents and ensures their needs are at the core of all development plans.” Indeed, for some observers, in much the same manner that “urban renewal” became a euphemism for “urban removal,” “gentrification” is just another way of saying “displacement.” McKoy added that the federal division he’s charged with directing came out of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Congress passed in November. McKoy will work alongside the nation’s leading climate scientists and Department of Energy officials and staffers to ensure the funds are distributed equitably across states and communities nationally to
invest in projects that build the nation’s infrastructure, address climate change, and create well-paying jobs. In the press release, McKoy notes that part of his responsibility will be “to ensure that a diverse and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem across the United States is positioned to benefit from these programs, not just now, but well into the future.” McKoy stated that the presidential appointment by law requires him to live in the nation’s capital during the appointment. His office will be based in the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters. McKoy told the INDY he will still maintain close contact with the Bull City. “My family will still be here,” he says. As for the perceived gaping leadership void in Hayti Reborn as a result of his departure, McKoy says “the community is well positioned to keep the work going on” and will continue “the fight to realize equitable development in the Hayti community … via Hayti Reborn, with a particular focus on continuing the struggle over the future of the 20-acre Fayette Place parcel.” McKoy told the INDY that, at last count, more than 500 people have become involved in the fight to have more community involvement and say in Hayti’s revitalization. McKoy says historic Hayti residents have been meeting on a monthly basis for more than two years on their own without his presence. “I feel very confident that the people here are positioned to remain vigilant,” he says. “Even though I won’t be the center of attention, my goal has always been to use my position to bring other people’s stories to bear. It’s not about Henry McKoy.” Longtime Hayti residents say the fight is far from over. “The leadership and footprints of Dr. Henry McKoy have exalted the heart’s desire of the Hayti community and citizens of Durham to save and restore the last remnants of an historic district in Durham,” Anita Scott Neville, a longtime Durham resident and facilitator of the Hayti Reborn Community Council, stated in the press release. “This activism in Durham will neither wane nor cease; rather we will continue to fight the good fight that Dr. McKoy set in motion.” McKoy reiterates that Hayti Reborn is not “just about me or a solo act.” “There remains incredible leadership to continue the fight for dignity and justice here in Durham,” he says. “Anyone who thinks differently is just plain wrong. Many times it has been the fight in the community that has inspired me, not the other way around.” W
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July 27, 2022
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Durham DJ Rogers, Durham’s new poet laureate PHOTO BY MADDIE WRAY
Bull City Poet DJ Rogers, Durham’s first poet laureate, is empowering people to tell their own stories. BY MADDIE WRAY backtalk@indyweek.com
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hen DJ Rogers was nine, he could not read fluently. Rogers’s ADHD made it nearly impossible to get through long texts, his attention span waning too quickly to finish a page. Medications did nothing but put him to sleep. Growing up in South Raleigh as one of 14 children and lacking accommodations for his disorder, he felt like school was a place where he could never succeed. In the third grade, Rogers’s teacher, Mr. Peterson, and his assistant, Ms. Cook, saw an opportunity to change Rogers’s experience. The two approached the struggling student with works by famous poet and activist Langston Hughes. Suddenly, things clicked. The pieces were creative and eloquent but short enough for Rogers to read without losing focus. He pored over the stanzas, learning words and phrases and structure and prose. Soon, he taught himself to read and write poetry of his own. “Seeing that there were writings in a book that were this long was incredible to me,” Rogers says. “I was like, I can do this.” To this day, poetry shapes Rogers’s language—and now, he will bring that language, passion, and talent to the public as Durham’s first poet laureate. 10
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The Durham City Council announced his one-year term, beginning on July 1, as a leader in the arts and culture community on June 22. Just over one year ago, a group of local poets—Dasan Ahanu, Crystal Simone Smith, and Chris Vitiello—went to the city council’s Cultural Advisory Board to propose the creation of the position. “I feel like there’s been some splintering and loneliness among the poetry world,” says Vitiello, who has been part of the Durham poetry scene for almost 30 years. “I think to have a publicly recognized poet doing public events is a good point of conversation for the arts to gather around and for writers to find each other.” The poet laureate will bridge the gap between Durham and its poetic arts scene by bringing the craft to the streets and the schools. Beyond writing commemorative poems for Durham events, Rogers will showcase his work through readings in the community and lead educational opportunities to encourage arts involvement across the city. “I wanted [the laureate] to not just be someone who kind of sits in the studio or writing studio and writes poetry and publishes books,” Smith says. “I wanted somebody who was going to bring poetry into our various communities,
particularly our vulnerable communities, and use that tool to bring us together.” Rogers’s quiet, calm presence would make anyone comfortable. He speaks in sentences with no clear ending, figurative language embellishing his ideas like flecks of gold. Narrative and prose poetry flow out of him naturally. Poetry is the foundation of his speech and thinking, and it is how he tells his own story. A UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, Rogers, 33, has been involved in teaching, activism, and the arts for over 12 years. His first experience with teaching came when he helped to found Building Bonds, Breaking BARS (Barriers Against Reaching Success) in his junior year of college. This group raised awareness of the African American male school-to-prison pipeline. Its members also went into juvenile detention centers to work with youth, teaching subjects such as Black history to help spread knowledge of subjects typically overlooked in school systems. Rogers, a tall man with long hair and a full beard, began his journey as a teaching artist after he graduated in 2011. He helped form a slam poetry team at UNC called the Wordsmiths. The group trained for regional and national competitions of spoken word performance. Rogers served as an “idea generator” for the new group, he said, and a coach for the budding poets. Former Wordsmiths managing director Kat Tan, 25, explains that Rogers always encouraged his students to embrace the full scope of themselves. “I think the biggest thing for me,” she says, “is that he took my perspective seriously.” She worked with Rogers for three years in the group while he was community adviser. “He reminds me a lot of a preacher sometimes, and that is something elevating,” the medical school student says. “It does inspire you to see how you might play a role in a larger story.” “I love slam because it does encourage people to write,” Rogers says, “and that is one of my goals—I want people to be writing and to generate work, to take their ideas and bring them to the audience.” Rogers worked with the Wordsmiths from 2011 to 2020 (when the national poetry slam competition was put on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic). At the same time, he introduced teens to the creative arts through projects like the Street Scene Teen Center and the group Sacrificial Poets. The nonprofit Sacrificial Poets uses poetry to develop artistic and personal growth in youth around the Triangle. Rogers, as executive director and teaching artist, co-led workshops with youth in middle and high schools as part of the Chapel Hill–Carrboro City and Orange County Schools’ Boomerang program. The program works with students suspended from school and provides them the opportunity to make up lost credit hours with development classes and activities, one being Rogers’s poetry activities. “I worked with a lot of students who were having a lot of issues pertaining to their home life or mental
health,” Rogers says. “They had written these poems that were brutal to read and listen to. But they were the story that they needed to tell, and being able to do so allowed them to feel heard and listened to in a way that fostered communication between them.” Much of Rogers’s philosophy of teaching poetry stems from this idea of self-expression. “Empowering people to tell their own stories,” he says, “is something I’ve seen be transformative for people of all ages and walks of life over my years of doing this work.” His experience with Sacrificial Poets revealed to him his passion for teaching, he says. Rogers has taught at multiple schools and now works as an instructional coach and teacher at Art of Problem Solving, a national virtual program, providing administrative guidance for the school’s English teachers. “I wasn’t someone who grew up knowing that I wanted to be a teacher, educator, or artist,” Rogers says. “I was just somebody who tried to find my niche and also tried to build a future where I could then use what I had to help other people.” In his piece, “I would love to applaud but I am too tired,” he writes: To be a black man and an educator is to be a voodoo doll —a thing that holds others’ Pain. Every one of us that dies feels like they swept through my classroom —not a ghost, a needle. Intentional and precise. He plans to use his new position to develop poetry and creative workshops in Durham’s housing projects. Residents of the projects are often forgotten, says Rogers, but they have just as much art to share as the rest of the city. He hopes that as laureate he can bring recognition and resources to those communities and others so they can tell their stories. “I don’t want to find their voice, because they already have it, but to engage with them in a new way, to say, ‘This is how I want to tell my story.’ To say, ‘This is important to me because I was here and nobody can take that away from me.’ Just to say, ‘I’m here now—nothing’s gonna change that.” W This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and The 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy.
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July 27, 2022
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Durham PHOTO BY ANNIE MAYNARD
Catching a Break Sixty thousand stray cats breathe a sigh of relief as county leaders outlaw euthanasia. BY ANA YOUNG backtalk@indyweek.com
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s soon as County Attorney Willie Darby began a public hearing to decide the fate of thousands of cats in Durham on the night of July 11, it was clear where most people stood: A majority of the nearly 40 people in attendance nodded as he read off proposed amendments to the Durham County Animal Control Ordinance. With teary eyes and shaky voices, proponents of the changes persuaded the County Board of Commissioners to unanimously pass the amendments, 5-0, all but outlawing euthanasia for community cats. Highlights of the changes to the ordinance include establishing a TNVR program (trap, neuter, vaccinate, and return) for abandoned and stray cats—now legally known as community cats—which would be euthanized only if they’re sick and unlikely to recover. Under the changes, non-profits would administer the program. “What we’re doing now, it’s just — it’s not working,” said Wendy Jacobs, vice chair of the board. “We need to do something different; this is a community problem that needs a community-based solution. I really look forward to the next steps.” Supporters of the amendments argue that administering neutering and vaccination services to community 12
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cats will reduce their population. Anything short of this is inhumane, they say. Opponents are unsure whether the legislation will fulfill its purpose, arguing that ending euthanasia and trap programs could harm the local bird population, as cats are predators. Currently, there are nearly 60,000 community cats in Durham, Jacobs says. The cost of euthanizing them all would be $120 million. The county spent $70,000 in 2021 on euthanizing around 350 cats. “This is not something that we’re gonna solve tonight. It’s not something that can be solved in one ordinance,” said the hearing’s first speaker, Danielle Bays, a senior analyst for Cat Protection Policy at the Humane Society of the United States. “But it’s not going to be solved by continuing down the path that Durham is on now.” Handgun in her pocket and hair in a bun, Lt. Wendy Pinner, of animal services at the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, matter-of-factly told the audience that her department traps animals only when Durham County residents request removal from their property. And because they recently paused the animal trapping program due to overcrowding at the Animal Protection Society shelter, she has had many “frustrated” and “angry” citizens come into her office.
“We had one address in Treyburn [a neighborhood in North Durham] where we received 171 calls for services to trap animals,” she said after stressing that the sheriff’s office is not staffed to carry out trapping. Andrew Hutson, vice president of the National Audubon Society and executive director of Audubon North Carolina, and Barbara Driscoll, president of New Hope Audubon Society, also opposed the amendments. Hutson, who represented 2,000 members of the Audubon Society in Durham, said that the trapping and vaccination program “fails on all accounts” because it is “nearly impossible for 100 percent of cats to be trapped and vaccinated.” He added that “cats also have toxoplasmosis” — a disease that comes from a parasite found in cat feces — and kill more than two billion birds yearly in the United States. Driscoll restated Hutson’s claims that the programs have failed to reduce populations and added that it makes “abandonment by pet owners easier.” She worried that these efforts would make it harder to have a “more bird-friendly Durham.” On the other side, Shafonda Allen, executive director of the Animal Protection Society of Durham, a local shelter, told the board how much work the community is willing to put into protecting these cats. For instance, Susan Elmore, a veterinary anatomic pathologist in Chapel Hill and veterinarian for Independent Animal Rescue (IAR), a local nonprofit that provides homes for unwanted cats and dogs, is already helping cats for free. (She was among those who spayed and neutered roughly 1,500 cats at IAR and at Orange County Animal Shelter and Durham County Animal Shelter last year.) “We realized now the reality is that we have these community cats. But if we spay and neuter, their numbers will go down,” Elmore, who attended the public hearing, said in an interview with The 9th Street Journal. “And we have seen this done successfully in many counties in North Carolina and in many states in the country. So this isn’t new ground that we’re breaking, you know; this is a tried and true method of taking care of the community cat population.” Before Allen’s two minutes were up, she asked everyone in the room “who is in support of the Animal Welfare Committee’s ordinance changes to allow TNVR in Durham” to stand. The majority of the room stood up. “These are your citizens; these are your voters,” Allen said. “Everyone here is willing to do something to help with this problem. They notice this doing more, not less. And for every person that calls, that wants them just removed and doesn’t know they will die, there are more who are willing to help them.” W This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and The 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy.
M U SIC
Her Take: On Carolina Hip-Hop ILLUSTRATION BY JON FULLER
Flow State Raleigh emcee Ty 4 Thought on his upbringing, falling in love with rap, and adopting a “conscious gangster” mindset. BY KYESHA JENNINGS music@indyweek.com | @kyeshajennings
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aleigh emcee Tyrell Moten (Ty 4 Thought) was born and raised in Kinston, a small town that was once the hub of African American music in eastern North Carolina. In addition to influencing jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, and gospel music—all genres that have all had a direct impact on hip-hop—in 2018 Kinston was crowned “the NBA capital of the world.” “Kinston is a small town, but we’re not as slow as a town as most people think,” says Moten, 36, over the phone. While attending Fayetteville State University, Moten would accompany a friend to rap battles; there, he rekindled his love for hip-hop. “I wrote poetry up until college,” Moten says. “So when I linked up with [my friend] while he was doing this music, watching him battle for some reason—it just ignited a fire in me. My love for poetry turned into ‘Oh man, I feel like I want to rap.’” Prior to that moment of clarity, Moten had rejected affiliations as a rapper. With poetry, he expressed himself best by carefully writing his thoughts down; rap, meanwhile, was extemporaneous and involved freestyling.
“Freestyling never did anything for me, because it’s like you talking off the top of your head and begin to start saying some crazy stuff,” Moten says. “I’ve never wanted to do that.” Moten’s poetic sensibilities led him to his rap name, Ty 4 Thought, which also serves as an homage to Black Thought, the lyrical front man for The Roots. By the time he graduated college, Moten had invested thousands of dollars in studio equipment. The investment led him to be able to create a discography of seven projects to date. “My music is real,” Moten says, when asked to describe his sound. “I’d hate to sound so cliche, but I literally write about my life. Ninety-eight percent of what I say is no fabrication.” Although he’s proud of his autobiographical lyrical style, he also expresses interest in making further creative inroads with his storytelling. God Flow, his latest project, was released on April 19. The well-curated 13-track EP consists of a mix of boom-bap and contemporary hip-hop beats and presents Moten’s thoughts and feelings on a wide range of topics through skits and lyricism. Whether it’s the cadence of his voice or the lyrical content, immediately listeners can hear the influences of Kanye West, Nipsey Hussle, and even Future. “I like to consider myself like a reporter of the human experience,” he says. “We are all walking contradictions to a certain extent. So this project here, I tried to pull contradictions out. I have certain lyrics or certain songs where you may be like, ‘Wow, but he just made a reference to God.’ I have a song called “All Praise Is Due” that’s almost like gospel hip-hop. But then I have another song where I rap about the first time I called a girl a bitch. You feel how you feel at certain times. And I’m just gonna give you how I’m feeling, you know?” To best describe these multiple identities, Moten has adopted a new label: “conscious gangster.” For Moten, it’s important to avoid associating the term “gangster” with only self-destructive behavior. “Everything that we love is ‘gangster,’” he says. “The whole mentality of America is gangster. So it’s funny how we try to paint a picture one way when overall, as a country, we are all attracted to the gangster shit. Whether movies, music, politicians, the military, or the police. This is what it is.”
In Kinston, Moten was raised in a two-parent household. His father was in the military and his mother was a social worker. Moten’s parents have supported his career from the start but have also shared concerns about the kinds of messages he was sending in his music. “In hindsight, looking back, I’m like, oh, man, we kind of had a decent life,” he says. “We never was hungry and we had all of our basic necessities.” After his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 while Moten was in high school, he gravitated toward the streets. His middle-class upbringing could not protect him from gang life. “Looking back on my life, it’s like, OK, yeah, we grew up middle class, nice neighborhood, the whole nine, but that don’t stop you,” says Moten. He reflects on this specific reality on the sixth track, “O T Genasis Skit.” “Going to the street life for me was quite easy, because the guys I seen that was in it, they were aggressive and reminded me of my militant father,” Moten says. “A lot of cats are either looking, and they won’t admit it, that they are kind of looking for this father-figure type. You also join for the camaraderie and, simply put, out of pain. If you didn’t grow up in a neighborhood where gangbanging was taking place, like me, I had a lot of pain, so I wanted to join something that I saw was also inflicting pain.” Moten’s parents can be proud that God Flow has a number of positive messages woven throughout. The conscious gangster raps about being motivated and working hard to create a desirable life, paying homage to the state of North Carolina on “NC State of Mind.” On “Shawn Carter Skit,” he uses the words of Jay-Z to remind himself and others to never give up on their dreams. References to his faith are scattered throughout. When asked what his proudest moment as an artist is, without hesitation Moten names his parents. “Seeing the look in my parents’ eyes like ‘Holy shit this guy can really rap.’ I even said it at one of my shows. I was laughing because I saw my dad’s face. So I told the crowd, I said, ‘My dad looking at me like, “Oh, this cat really doing this?”’ He really had his look in his eyes that communicated, ‘Wow, my son is actually good at this,’” says Moten. “That was my proudest moment—seeing my parents at my show. They get it. They finally get it.” W INDYweek.com
July 27, 2022
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THE MOMVERSATIONS PROJECT
National Women’s Theatre Festival | Friday, July 29, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, July 31, 2:30 p.m., Thursday, August 4, 7:30 p.m. | womenstheatrefestival.org
Sharing the Burden A documentary theater project goes deep on the conditions of pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com
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fter three years of research and analysis, Johannah Maynard Edwards is succinct on the conditions of motherhood in the United States right now. “They’re deteriorating,” says the executive artistic director of the National Women’s Theatre Festival. “It’s worse today than it was yesterday, worse than it was last year and three years ago.” Edwards reflects for a second. “And,” she adds, “it’s going to be worse tomorrow.” She and Molly Claassen, an associate professor at Columbus State University, have assembled the facts to back up that hard-nosed conclusion. This and next week, they’ll present these and other findings in an unconventional form: the theatrical workshop premiere of The Momversations Project at the National Women’s Theatre Festival in Raleigh. The 90-minute work is a documentary theater project on the circumstances and conditions of pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond in our country that have long gone unreported and unexamined. Dramaturg Emily Boyd Dahab describes the work as “a memoir of a moment in American motherhood, a lampoon of the political quagmire in which we find ourselves, a lullaby to that which we wish would change, and a battle cry ... to encourage ourselves and others to keep up the fight.” Begin with the fact that motherhood is endemic in our culture. The Pew Research Center reports that the overwhelming majority, 86 percent, of American women and birthing people will become parents at some point during their lifetime. They are also twice as likely to die now than their mothers were a generation ago as a result of their pregnancies. That number more than doubles again for women of color in the United States. 14
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The country’s maternal mortality rate jumped by more than a third over the last three years on record according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not only is it now the highest among developed nations, but the fatality rate here is nearly three times higher than in the next worst country, France. “What we’re seeing all over the country is that where you live, in a city or a rural area—and not just if you’re in a red or blue state but a red or blue county— has a real correlation to life expectancy for pregnant women and their mental health outcomes,” Edwards says. An American health-care system plagued by health and racial inequities and underinvestment in primary care and mental health “too often fails women of reproductive age,” according to an April study by the Commonwealth Fund. In The Momversations Project, Edwards, Claassen, and their colleagues ground these statistical realities in the real-life stories of more than 100 mothers, doctors, nurses, doulas, and others that they’ve interviewed over the last three years. “As we looked at what was unfolding around us,” Edwards says, “we asked ourselves, could we use these ancient mechanisms of community, theater, and storytelling to help make lives better on a cellular, individual level and outcomes statistically better in specific communities?” They began releasing some of their stories in a podcast series in March. Then they turned to a community of mothers to mount the stage production. But, since mothers are so ubiquitous, why is such a project necessary? “We just don’t talk about motherhood,” says Claassen, who directs the show. She notes that in American soci-
The cast of The Momservations Project ety having a baby “is all butterflies and rainbows—and yes, parts of it are absolutely amazing. But we don’t talk about the realities of what it truly is to be a pregnant person: what that does to your body, what recovery is like, and what it is to now suddenly have to take care of another human being.” Another reason such stories have gone untold? Most mothers are far too busy being moms: juggling work responsibilities and home lives, which frequently involve disproportionate shares of housework and childcare. “American mothers are exhausted. They’re just drowning,” Dahab says. In her program notes she writes that when birthing people are mothering, “nothing is harder than finding time, space, energy, and bandwidth to record that experience.” Cultural expectations—and the fear of being branded a bad mom if one complains—compound the silence. “As soon as you speak up and say this isn’t right, you have to be so careful in the way you do it to be heard,” Claassen says. “Otherwise, you’re ‘dramatic.’ You become the hysterical woman—or you’re the bitch.” And when much about women’s health is kept hidden and treated as shameful,
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECTS
a lot of crucial information doesn’t get passed down. “We just tell the cleaned-up version, the tropes, the stereotypes over and over again,” Edwards says. Claassen says it’s critical that motherhood be discussed in ways “more forthcoming” than it has been. “It’s beyond ridiculous that people can get pregnant and say, ‘What the hell’s happening?’ But that’s what happens when there is no knowledge base.” She recalls prepping herself during childhood to be a mother: babysitting, working at daycare centers, poring over issues of Parents magazine. “I thought I was so informed,” she says. “And I still had no freaking clue. For someone who actively tried to learn all of this, I still didn’t have anywhere near the information I should have had.” When so much fundamental information has been withheld, the question arises: What percentage of women and birthing people have ever been in the position to give truly informed consent about entering into motherhood? As almost every mother knows, the challenges don’t end there. Birthing people are routinely misinformed and their experiences discounted, and disbelieved, often
beyond the point at which their and their children’s lives are endangered. One centerpiece in The Momversations Project depicts the story of Ariel Castillo, a biracial woman whose self-diagnosis of life-threatening preeclampsia was disregarded by her physicians, even though she had a medical degree herself. “They told me to stop calling,” she reported. In the performance, Stephanie Pieper and performer and writer Ariel Fay Gray enact a harrowing dance sequence while her narrative unfolds. Because the Dobbs case that overturned Roe made its way through the courts while The Momversations Project was in development, reproductive rights have been a concern throughout the production’s development. “Depending on their weight and height, some 10-year-olds are still required by law to be in a booster seat,” Edwards says. Citing a recent case in Ohio she notes, “That same 10-year-old can be forced to carry and give birth to a baby. “As [the Roe decision] got closer and closer, it just crystallized for us: motherhood is so fucking hard, nobody should be forced into doing it.” A dollar from every show ticket will be donated to the Carolina Abortion Fund, and to help enable the audience to take at least one meaningful action themselves, representatives from the Carolina Abortion Fund and Moms Demand Action will have tables in the lobby. People can write postcards to their state representatives on legislation pending in the General Assembly before and after the performance. To be clear, The Momversations Project isn’t 90 minutes of despair. “It’s about the messy and the beautiful,” Claassen says. “There’s so many moments that are so fulfilling and worthwhile and beautiful.” Humor, wonder, and deep empowerment inform sections on microchimerism, social justice, and unconditional love. The producers also integrated a different form of activism into the production’s own structure and casting. In an art form where mothers have typically been excluded, only one member of The Momversations Project is not a mother. Provisions for childcare and accommodations for the other unpredictable intrusions of motherhood have been a part of the project from the outset, in embracing what the Parent Artist Advocacy League calls radical inclusivity. “It’s not just about doing it because it’s necessary; it’s about doing it because it’s right,” Claassen says. “And it’s really not all that hard. If you just allow people to be human, really, you can figure it out.” W
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July 27, 2022
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TIM HEIDECKER LIVE!
Sun., July 31, 8 p.m. | The Carolina Theatre, Durham
Tim Heidecker PHOTO BY ANDREW LEVY
Musical Chairs Ahead of his show at The Carolina Theater, Tim Heidecker talks comedy, his new album High School, and his ‘No More Bullshit’ character. BY ZACK SMITH arts@indyweek.com
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f Tim Heidecker seems spectacularly inept at stand-up comedy when he performs at the Carolina Theatre this Saturday … well, that’s the point. “It’s the ‘No More Bullshit’ character,” Heidecker says in a phone call with the INDY, referencing his persona from the 2020 YouTube stand-up special An Evening with Tim Heidecker. “You know, toxic male, shitty, shouldn’t be touring, shouldn’t be performing stand-up publicly. But it’s the kind of act where if you’re in the know and you are hip to the satire of it, then it becomes a really fun, exciting part of the show.” Heidecker’s fans are used to this kind of funny-because-it’s-failing-to-be-funny comedy from his nearly two decades of TV shows, movies, and podcasts specializing in horrifyingly inept, sometimes malicious 16
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characters whose need for recognition far outweighs their talent. In such series as Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and the long-running On Cinema, Heidecker’s comedy specializes in awkwardness, grotesquerie, and rampant destruction wrought by people who chase fame despite their lack of understanding of technology, dealing with an audience, or basic human interaction. The “reviews” of On Cinema’s film critics always dissolve into petty bickering that has nothing to do with the films themselves; one of Heidecker’s recurring characters on Awesome Show, Great Job! was a sweaty, crater-faced child singer named Casey Tatum who couldn’t get through an off-key song without vomiting.
“I think failure is a big component of my comedy,” says Heidecker, who is 46. “It’s sort of a core aspect of comedy itself; like, the act of seeing somebody fail can be very funny if they’re failing for selfish reasons or slipping on a banana peel, metaphorically. So, I’m drawn to that, into showing characters who we see in the world, and laughing at them and making fun of them for being the way they are.” Given the state of the real world, Heidecker admits that “I might be coming close to a place in my life where creatively, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I need to keep making this statement about toxic masculinity.’ You know, to what degree it is just preaching to the choir and not really making any difference?” “I try to do it not in a preachy way and not in a pretentious way but in a way that that can be funny on its own and have a universal comedic quality to it that you could perhaps enjoy if you didn’t necessarily agree with me on everything,” he adds. While Heidecker’s an old pro at playing rank amateurs, attendees of his Carolina Theatre show will get a look at his more professional side in the musical second act, featuring songs from his acclaimed album High School with The Very Good Band. “There are two sorts of sides of my personality, or my creative life, that I have been doing for years but have never traveled with and taken on the road,” Heidecker says. “And for those two things, it felt like it was time to try to mount a show together. But it works out nice because I get bored quickly as an audience member when something is just, you know, one thing. So, there’s a variety to the whole show that I think will keep you from getting bored by any one thing.” Heidecker’s musical career is more straight-faced than his stand-up act but still veers toward the comedic, with past collaborations satirizing everything from Bob Dylan to concept albums to internet trolls. Heidecker says that his sense of humor remains a key part of his music. “Some people might be skeptical about or hesitant about the musical side of the show, but I think the band is going to blow everybody away. I think the best compliment I saw about my new album was that somebody commented, ‘It sounds a little bit like this, it sounds a little bit like that, but to me, it sounds like Tim.’” Heidecker hopes the show at the Carolina Theatre goes better for him than it would for his characters. “We [Heidecker and Eric Wareheim] played there last in 2020 and received this lovely statue of a bull because the show sold out, because that’s their tradition there,” he says. “And I’m hoping I can get a second bull to go with my first bull.” W
CULTURE CALENDAR
Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.
Thelma and the Sleaze performs at The Pinhook on Thursday, July 28. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK
art CreativeMornings with Nnenna Freelon Fri, Jul. 29, 8:30 a.m. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. Figure and Ground Fri, Jul. 29, 6 p.m. Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough.
music Elf Power $15. Wed, Jul. 27, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Jul. 27, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Al Strong: Jazz on the Roof Thurs, Jul. 28, 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham. City Morgue SOLD OUT. Thurs, Jul. 28, 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. Daniel Donato Thurs, Jul. 28, 6:30 p.m. Smoky Hollow, Raleigh. Iration and Atmosphere: Sunshine & Summer Nights Tour $35+. Thurs, Jul. 28, 5:30 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.
Mellow Swells Thurs, Jul. 28, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
Phish $50+. Fri, Jul. 29, 7 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.
Pitbull: Can’t Stop Us Now Tour $39+. Thurs, Jul. 28, 8 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.
The Vegabonds / The Dirty Guv’nahs $30. Fri, Jul. 29, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Prison $15. Thurs, Jul. 28, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Wyatt Easterling $18. Fri, Jul. 29, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Spring Summer $12. Thurs, Jul. 28, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Thelma and the Sleaze $10. Thurs, Jul. 28, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Carolina Waves: Hotter Than July Fest $10. Fri, Jul. 29, 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham. Fleet Foxes: Shore Tour $25+. Fri, Jul. 29, 8 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh. Kenneth Stewart and Friends: The Retro-Future’s Past $15+. Fri, Jul. 29, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.
Brick + Mortar $15. Sat, Jul. 30, 8:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Kehlani: Blue Water Road Trip $29+. Sat, Jul. 30, 8 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh. Kenny PhelpsMcKeown Quartet $15+. Sat, Jul. 30, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham. Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum $25+. Sat, Jul. 30, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Boz Scaggs $50+. Sun, Jul. 31, 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham. Lee Gildersleeve $7. Sun, Jul. 31, 2 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
LEAD and the NCMA: Virtual Sensory Journey Through Art Tues, Aug. 2, 7 p.m. Online; presented by NCMA.
stage
page Serena Kaylor: Long Story Short Wed, Jul. 27, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. J. Brent Morris: Dismal Freedom Thurs, Jul. 28, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
An Afternoon of Poetry Sun, Jul. 31, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. Thomas Vanhook: Pebbles on the Journey Sun, Jul. 31, 3 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham.
Story Time with Matt Myers Sat, Jul. 30, 10:30 a.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
National Women’s Theatre Festival $20+. Jul. 28-31, various times. Frank Thompson Hall, Raleigh. Tim Heidecker $40+. Sun, Jul. 31, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird $35+. Aug. 2-7, various times. DPAC, Durham.
Rage Against the Machine $125+. Sun, Jul. 31, 8 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh. Live Jazz with Danny Grewen & Griffanzo Mon, Aug. 1, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Fitz and the Tantrums & Andy Grammer: The Wrong Party Tour $50+. Tues, Aug. 2, 7 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, Aug. 2, 9 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham. Rob Gelblum Tues, Aug. 2, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
screen Romancing the Stone $10. Wed, Jul. 27, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. CatVideoFest 2022 $10+. Jul. 28– Aug. 4, various times. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. Movies under the Stars: Encanto Thurs, Jul. 28, 8 p.m. The Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill.
Judas and the Black Messiah screens the North Carolina Museum of Art’s outdoor theater on Saturday, July 30. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA
The Dark Crystal and The NeverEnding Story $10. Fri, Jul. 29, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Movies by Moonlight: Jungle Cruise $10. Fri, Jul. 29, 8:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.
Outdoor Film Series: Judas and the Black Messiah $7. Sat, Jul. 30, 8:30 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
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