Queen City Nerve - March 22, 2023

News: eNsuriNg

treatmeNt for opioid use disorder iN jails

pg. 4 arts: three decades of dressiNg hollywood’s biggest stars

pg. 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NEWS & OPINION

4 The Right to Treatment by Annie Keough

Fighting illegal opioid discrimination in health-care settings and jails

ARTS & CULTURE

6 No Worse for Wear by Hailey Knutsen

UNC Charlotte honors impressive career of costume ager Jack Taggart

8 It’s In a Book by Ryan Pitkin

Local author recognized for children’s books spotlighting social justice issues

10 Lifeline: Ten Cool Things To Do in Two Weeks

MUSIC

12 A Warm Welcome by Pat Moran

Annual music fest founders turn to booking shows year-round

14 Soundwave

FOOD & DRINK

16 The Fast and the Casual by Dezanii Lewis

Manny Flores builds a dynasty with Que Hospitality

LIFESTYLE

18 Puzzles

20 Aerin It Out by Aerin Spruill

21 Horoscope

22 Savage Love

Thanks to our contributors: Grant Baldwin, Aerin Spruill, Dezanii Lewis, Annie Keough, Hailey Knutsen, Greyson Plate, Gloria Zavaleta, Matthew Murphy, Jalen Marlowe, Justin Higuchi, Brian McMillen and Dan Savage.

THE RIGHT TO TREATMENT

Fighting illegal opioid discrimination in health care settings and jails

BY ANNIE KEOUGH

A startling North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) report in February showed a 22% increase in overdose deaths in 2021, claiming 4,041 lives and contributing to the highest number of overdose deaths in a single year recorded in the state.

North Carolina’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed that 2022 showed no signs of those numbers decreasing.

Now two organizations, Disability Rights North Carolina (DRNC) and Vital Strategies’ Overdose Prevention Program, have announced two initiatives to protect the right to health care for North Carolinians with substance use disorders in jails and health care settings.

Staff at these organizations say that efforts to reverse the opioid crisis are too often interrupted by rampant illegal discrimination in health care settings against people who use drugs and an aversion from law enforcement to distributing life-saving medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) to incarcerated people with substance use disabilities (SUDs).

DRNC and Vital Strategies’ recent press release announced their joint initiatives to prevent opioid overdoses in North Carolina by combining DRNC’s extensive reporting on overdose deaths in local jails and Vital Strategies’ anti-discrimination protection enforcement for people who use drugs.

“In the worst overdose crisis in history, it’s really unconscionable at this point that health care providers are routinely discriminating against people who use drugs and that jails continue to force individuals off life-saving medication,” Derek Carr, legal technical advisor for the Overdose Prevention Program at Vital Strategies, told Queen City Nerve.

Discrimination in health care

As part of these new initiatives, DRNC will incorporate strategies to address illegal discrimination in health care settings such as creating Know Your Rights materials, monitoring health care facilities, providing education on where and how discrimination takes place, offering direct legal assistance to discriminated individuals and instituting a litigation strategy targeting systemic drivers of discrimination.

Many people with substance or opioid use disorders receive substandard care in emergency rooms after a nonfatal overdose or are denied admission to skilled nursing facilities for taking prescribed opioid use disorder medication, Carr explained.

He said he’s seen the discrimination lead to patients disengaging from care and returning to use with a heightened risk of overdose after being detoxed and left with a low tolerance.

In his experience working in treatment centers, Dane Mullis, lead substance use disorder advocate for both DRNC initiatives, said people are often turned away and given the excuse that they need a higher level of care without a referral as to where to go.

“There’s this idea that if a person is currently using illegal drugs that they are not entitled to any protections whatsoever and that’s not the case,” Carr said. “Federal law does provide those protections in health care settings.”

TO INCARCERATED PEOPLE STRUGGLING WITH OPIOID USE DISORDER. ADOBESTOCK

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE

Carr believes there is a lack of understanding among affected populations, health care providers and the legal community about what protections exist for people with SUDs, which is why one of the major goals of the newly announced project is to raise awareness of what protections exist.

According to NCDHHS, communities of color are more vulnerable to the opioid crisis, with percentages of overdose deaths increasing by 53% for white people, 117% for American Indians and 139% for Black people in 2021 compared to previous years.

Along with Know Your Rights resources, DRNC will create other materials driven by the needs and desires of directly affected communities, with a focus on more susceptible marginalized populations.

Accessing medication in jails

Treatment is as necessary inside of jails as it is outside, and legally jails and detention centers have the same duty to provide health care as the facilities that are built to do so.

Along with discrimination in health care settings, DRNC’s initiative will protect the right to medications for opioid use disorder access for incarcerated people in North Carolina’s jail facilities and detention centers. The initiative will create a report of the facility’s current policies and practices related to MOUD access, provide Know Your Rights resources and offer legal assistance to incarcerated people seeking access to MOUD.

Luke Woollard, a staff attorney on the Criminal Justice Team at DRNC, said the goal of the initiative is to map out what MOUD services are already offered in North Carolina jails and pool resources to standardize MOUD access statewide.

Mullis is working on constructing a survey for criminal justice facilities to get an idea of what facilities offer MOUD and what access looks like within the facility.

So far, it’s not great. MOUD is currently only available in 20 of the 107 jails in North Carolina and still remains limited even in those 20 where it is present, Mullis said.

Carr told Queen City Nerve that there’s a direct connection between being denied life-saving medication and the risk of fatal overdose that wouldn’t happen with any other prescription.

“Someone with diabetes doesn’t come into jail and [is] told that they have to come off of their insulin,” he said. “That’s the stigma around these conditions.”

Because MOUD isn’t offered in all jails and detention centers in North Carolina, inmates with SUDs are taken off of their prescribed medication upon admission. Forget about the chance to start MOUD amid withdrawal symptoms after being forcibly detoxed, Woollard said.

He believes the goal of any incarceration should be to give the person opportunities to become better while incarcerated, not risk their health.

“By denying folks access to these meds while they are in these facilities, you are certainly putting their lives in danger, not only [of] personally damaging relapses, but also death,” Woollard explained.

DRNC’s 2020 Deaths in Jails Report noted that the majority of substance use-related deaths (overdoses and withdrawals) happened within the first two to four days of admission.

Even in the weeks following release, recently incarcerated North Carolinians are 40 times more likely than the general NC public to die from an overdose, said Kate Boulton, senior legal technical advisor at Vital Strategies, in the press release.

Without access to MOUD during and after incarceration, people with SUDs experiencing withdrawal will try to find other means either within the jail or in other substances to stop their symptoms, Woollard said.

“Anywhere people are incarcerated … [has] a duty to provide medical care,” he said. “It’s become pretty clear in the last few years … that MOUD is the best practice in terms of medical care for a lot of opioid use disorders.”

The decision on whether or not a jail offers MOUD, Woollard pointed out, is dependent on which county it’s in and past the minimal jail safety rules provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, jails tend to run on the bare minimum.

Because jails are almost completely run by the county sheriffs and funded by local county commissioners, one of the goals of the project is to uncover impact litigation cases that have the potential to cause positive systemic change and establish legal precedent case laws that ensure future protection for people with SUDs in health care and jail settings across the state, Carr said.

Although the initiatives only started up this month, Mullins told Queen City Nerve he is preparing himself and his team for the frustrating and exciting journey ahead: “It wouldn’t feel as good when we get things done if it wasn’t challenging, right?”

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

ARTS FEATURE

NO WORSE FOR WEAR

UNC Charlotte honors impressive career of costume ager Jack Taggart

BY HAILEY KNUTSEN

The lights dim, the movie screen interjects floating conversations and popcorn munching. Moviegoers are transported into the world of film, and in order to keep them there, the make-believe world has to look real, down to the clothes that the actors wear.

That doesn’t just mean choosing the outfits, it means making them look authentic. The perfect lived in leather jacket, faded band tee, and shoes that have walked the streets. The clothes that your favorite actors wear are brand new, but they don’t look it, thanks to textile artists like Charlotte native Jack Taggart.

Taggart attended UNC Charlotte, where he received a degree in the arts and discovered he had a knack for design. That’s also where he met his mentor Bob Croghan, who recognized his talents early and encouraged him to apply to graduate school in San Diego, California.

“I loaded up a U-Haul van and towed my Volkswagen Beetle cross country,” Taggart said. “As terrifying as it was, it was also kind of empowering because I figured out I can do this. Don’t think small, think big.”

At UC San Diego, Taggart took classes from Deborah Dryden, author of Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre; and Robert Israel, renowned costume and set designer. He graduated with a degree in design for theatre in 1991 and began his career designing for regional theatre.

More than three decades after that humble beginning, in recognition of a career that’s seen him working with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Taggart will be honored during UNC Charlotte’s College of Arts + Architecture 2023 Distinguished Alumni Awards, representing the theatre concentration, alongside four other impressive alumni. The ceremony will be held on March 30 at 11:30 a.m. in the Anne R. Belk Theater and is open to the public.

Aging, dying and restoration

As a costume ager, it’s not Taggart’s job to design the wardrobes the actors in a given production are wearing, it’s his job to make them look lived in — sometimes brutally so.

Taggart often has to age expensive couture pieces. He has had to age $8,000 Louboutins and $600 T-shirts, because some celebrities only like the feel of certain fabrics. He has had to age priceless, handmade pieces, like the costumes made out of beetle wings on Snow White and the Huntsman, which he suggests would be easily $50,000 taking into account materials, labor and time.

He tries not to ask for prices of the clothes he ages so it doesn’t make him nervous when he throws the fabrics into boiling water or sets a coat on fire.

“You get used to it after a while, you’re like, ‘Oh well this is a $6,000 dress. I’m just gonna set it on fire and rip it,’” Taggart said. “Then you have to buy six of them because that scene has a sequence where they get shot and they run down the street and then the aliens hit them with green goo and you just never know what’s gonna happen.”

Sometimes Taggart takes a break from fires and fabric ripping to go in the opposite direction: clothing restoration. Vintage pieces are often used in films, but when the wear is apparent it needs to be repaired. He re-treats and conditions leather, dyes or paints it; he re-adheres fur coats that are falling apart; he ensures that the clothing not only looks good on a mannequin but can maintain movement from the actors.

Taggart said his favorite restoration project was a green dress he restored for Angelina Jolie. He replaced the lace, restored fading, and dyed the fabric to the very particular shade of green that Jolie prefers. “She’s rather picky about clothes she’ll wear. There’s color she doesn’t like and there’s cuts she doesn’t like,” Taggart said.

It was while working with Jolie that Taggart experienced his first overwhelming paparazzi

experience. He recalled that everytime she stepped out of her trailer, men with cameras would emerge from bushes and behind fences for their shot at the perfect picture to sell.

“You have to always be aware of people coming up. I get people requesting things on social media. They say, ‘Oh, you worked on this movie, might you have these costumes? Can I buy that from you?’” Taggart explained. “It’s a different world.”

Taggart said that when working in film it’s important to stay professional and respect the actors’ space, because they are just normal people doing their job. When celebrities are stripped down to their underwear in costuming, they might not be enthralled to get a request for a picture or autograph.

“As impressed as you can be, you hold that in, because they don’t need that. They just need someone to do their job,” he said.

The most holding-in Taggart has had to do was when he met Tom Cruise. Every time he returned home to the East Coast, his high school friends would ask about the star. They’ve now worked together four or five times.

“He’s just normal and fun and very appreciative.

He’s just a good guy and he’s focused and professional,” Taggart said. “He really cares about the product and what he’s doing. He’s very hands-on and he’ll have lots of opinions about every element of the film.”

Tom Hanks is also a favorite of Taggart’s. He worked with Hanks on Cast Away, in which the main character Chuck fights to survive on a desert island. For the role, Hanks wore a loincloth made out of an old leather dress. After the team made about 50 loincloths, they finally settled on one.

While taking photos of the loin cloth on Hanks at the fitting, the team decided they needed photos outside in the sun since the movie was set on a beach, but they didn’t want to put Hanks outside in the studio lot with tourists driving by.

“I got to put it on. There was this moment where he’s stripping down and taking it off and handing it to me and he says, ‘We’ll take care of it. Thanks for warming it up for me,’” Taggart recalled of his interaction with Hanks. “I’m standing outside with my shirt off with a loincloth on. It’s just part of the job.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNC CHARLOTTE JACK TAGGART

ARTS FEATURE

Beginning in theatre

It didn’t take long for Taggart to realize that theatre design wasn’t going to make him a living, so Taggart began to supplement his income working at non-union shops building fantasy costumes. There he met Emmy-winning designer Julie Weiss, who introduced the idea of working on feature films. His first job in the union was Galaxy Quest, a 1999 sci-fi comedy featuring Sigourney Weaver, Tim Allen and Alan Rickman.

“I got in the union on that and I just kept working ever since,” Taggart said.

Over time, Taggart has become a popular call in Hollywood. In 2012, he realized his dream, which was to work with director Quentin Tarantino. After helping with costume design on the sets of Django Unchained, he got a callback to work with the iconic director again on The Hateful Eight. It’s not all westerns, though. He’s also worked on the Avatar films, which remain some of his favorite projects.

“The Avatar projects were amazing because that was stuff that no one had ever done before. People still don’t understand how we did the costume work on that,” Taggart said. “You think it’s all animated, but we actually built the real costumes and they filmed them in motion and then they applied that algorithm into the film.”

Taggart also worked on the set of war film Dunkirk, where he set flame to thousands of brand new military uniforms so that they looked like they had been through battle. He had crews in London, France and Amsterdam to help with the huge number of costumes.

Taggart travels often for his job. He has lived in places like Prague and Morocco for three or four months at a time. “You develop friends with the local teams and that just opens up your world even more,” Taggart said.

Currently he is working on a film written by Francis Ford Coppola called Megalopolis that has been in the works for 30 to 40 years. It is a metaphor for the fall of a society set in modern day New York City.

For Megalopolis, Taggart has been working alongside four-time Oscar-winning designer Milena Canonero, who he was introduced to during the filming of Dunkirk. After seven months of filming in Atlanta, the team has finally wrapped.

“It’s a really interesting project and Milena works unlike any other designer I’ve ever worked with before. It’s very challenging. We’re doing long days, sometimes 14 or 16 hours and sometimes it’s

six days a week,” Taggart said. “As exhausting as the work is, you get to work on stuff that’s seen by everyone and lives forever on the screen.”

Future projects

In the future, Taggart hopes to work on more period dramas and war movies. As much as he dislikes guns and war, he feels it is important to tell the stories and show how horrible war can be.

He also hopes to do more work with some of his favorite directors, including Tarantino and Steven Spielberg.

“Anything that if the projects good with talented directors and designers, the actors are good, it’s a privilege to work on those shows,” Taggart said.

He currently has his eyes on a project called Devil in the White City, adapted from a best-selling book that Leonardo DiCaprio is producing and Martin Scorcese is set to direct. The project is currently on hold, but when it resurfaces Taggart said he’ll be hoping for that call.

“Anything with a really good story. The writing is key. You can do anything you want with the biggest budgets in the world, but if the writing is weak, it’s just an awful project,” he said.

He added that even the unfavorable projects come with silver linings in the form of contacts and experiences with new people. He always appreciates the people that work with him, and he likes his department to be the calm in the storm on every set, despite deadlines that can seem impossible to meet.

“I always get comments from people that I

work with. ‘God your room is so nice. Everyone else is freaking out and pulling their hair out, but you guys seem like you’re having a good time in here,’” Taggart said. “So of course we’re having a good time. It always gets done. Nothing is impossible if you believe you can do it. My motto is always, ‘It’ll be fine, when do you need it?’”

A lot of people have dreams in the arts that seem impossible to achieve. They might be told that the arts aren’t profitable or “realistic”. Taggart disagrees.

Confidence is key, he insists, and so is being kind and staying down to earth. Taggart says an important part of being in the arts, film specifically, is developing a team of people in the industry that support you, and whom you can support as well.

“Dream big. Don’t dream small because if you dream small, that’s as big as your life will be,” Taggart said. “If you dream big, you can have a life you never thought you could have. Don’t listen to naysayers.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNC CHARLOTTE

TOM HANKS IN THE MOVIE ‘FINCH.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNC CHARLOTTE COSTUMES FROM ‘BLACK PANTHER,’ WHICH TAGGART WORKED ON.

IT’S IN A BOOK

Local author recognized for children’s books spotlighting social justice issues

BY RYAN PITKIN

The first quarter of 2023 has been a vindicating one for Charlotte author Alicia D. Williams, whose October 2022 children’s book The Talk has been recognized with national book honors multiple times, including a cherished Coretta Scott King Author Honor, announced in January.

Following that announcement at the annual LibLearnX conference in New Orleans, Williams learned that The Talk, a children’s book about a Black boy whose family members struggle to discuss racial inequality, police brutality, and systemic racism with him as he gets older, has also been recognized with the Golden Kite Honor Award for Picture Book Text, announced on Feb. 24.

According to Williams, the awards are most important in that they will spread the message

shared in her book to a wider audience.

“It is my hope that this book will be used as a talking point for parents, to help them have these difficult conversations in a gentle, loving way,” Williams stated in a release following the announcements. “The awards meant that perhaps The Talk would be amplified, keep the dialogue going, and be used as a tool for families to discuss such a tough topic.”

Williams’ debut novel, Genesis Begins Again, which tells the story of a 13-year-old girl with a dark complexion dealing with insecurity, colorism and poverty, earned a Newbery Honor Award and Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent. It was also a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and William C. Morris Prize.

The process behind The Talk, however, was a much different process considering that it is a picture book for young children as opposed to a novel for teens, though there were similarities.

“Both my picture book and middle-aged novel were emotional for me,” Williams told Queen City Nerve. “Both came directly from something deep inside. Something I needed to figure out or deal with within myself.”

For Genesis Strikes Again, Williams spent years crafting layered characters, motivations, backstory and plotlines while simultaneously carrying out in-depth research, including watching documentaries and reading all that she could find about colorism to ensure that her story came from an authentic place.

Williams had to put herself in the shoes of a fictional 13-year-old Black girl, not to mention all the other characters in her novel.

“I spent a lot of time with the characters. They

became real to me,” Williams explained. “I was emotionally connected to them, especially Genesis.”

Even after all the writing was done, the editing process on the novel was seemingly endless, Williams said, including a revision process that she repeated many times before handing it into an editor, who then restarted the process again.

While Williams carried out similar research for The Talk, watching YouTube documentaries about how families approached the subject and again reading all that she could find on the topic, the picture book didn’t need as much backstory or depth of character.

“While the topic is sensitive, like Genesis Begins Again, the audience is much younger, so it was very vital to me to present the story in the gentlest way possible,” Williams said. “One that will build understanding, empathy and assurance.”

A bittersweet moment

Learning of this year’s Coretta Scott King Honor Award was a bittersweet moment, Williams said, as the call came while the country was still reeling from the murder of Tyre Nichols, brutally beaten to death by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.

“When I received the call from the award committee, I was very emotional because of the release of the videos showing the assault of Tyre Nichols,” Williams said. “I thanked the committee profusely, even cried. The award meant that perhaps

PROMOTIONAL PHOTO

ALICIA D. WILLIAMS

‘THE TALK’ WAS AWARDED A CORETTA SCOTT KING AUTHOR HONOR IN JANUARY.

ARTS FEATURE

The Talk would be amplified, keep the dialogue going, and be used as a tool for families to discuss such a tough topic.”

In a discussion with Queen City Nerve following the release of her debut novel in 2019, Williams described how she had become interested in storytelling at a young age thanks to her close relationship with her grandmother, then became specifically interested in folk tales when she became a mother herself.

She experimented with other forms of storytelling — studying drama in New York, dabbling as a playwright, writing short stories and hosting oral storytelling workshops — before writing her first novel. Genesis Begins Again was published in January 2019.

Her follow-up middle-grade novel, set to be published in spring 2024, tells the story of two boys who embark on an epic summer of breaking world records to save their friendship.

Williams sad that, while the synopsis sounds more light-hearted than her previous two projects, there is still “something simmering under the surface … something unspoken between two

friends.”

“I needed a less heavy topic for my mental health, but more importantly, I still had emotions swirling inside me that I needed to work through,” she said. “I was still grieving from the social justice unrest of 2020. Confused, too, as to why certain issues in our country never seemed to get resolved or better, and I needed to explore this.

“With this story, I got to have fun through two boys, best friends,” she continued. “It was therapy writing their joy, friendship, adventure, bravery, and sensitivity, too. I love to laugh. And through my characters, I work through conflicts, injustice, hurt, confusion, and even grief with humor. So, you can say, writing and laughing are good for my mental health.”

Supporting local

This year’s Golden Kite Honor Award came with a $500 cash prize and a $250 “charitable award,” which Williams chose to donate to Promising Pages, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that collects new and donated books and shares them with under-resourced families in Charlotte. The organization aims to build home libraries for the estimated 60,000 Charlottearea children who live in book deserts — meaning they have few, if any, books in the home.

Williams said she chose Promising Pages because the organization’s mission aligns with hers. She remembers a time when the local library was seeing budget cuts and libraries were closing in lowincome neighborhoods, which Williams credits with how we got to this point. She was dismayed but not surprised when she heard that a total of 60,000 Charlotte children were living in book deserts.

It’s an issue she has a personal connection with.

“I didn’t have a home library,” she recalled. “Thank heavens for the book mobile, which drove to my grandmother’s neighborhood. Not only did I get to continue reading during the summer months for academia, but those books were also an escape from my reality. Those books provided me an outlet to live in someone else’s shoes, to let me know that I wasn’t alone in what I was going through.

“And through the characters I was even guided on how to handle life — the very toughest parts and the unspoken ones — that children and young people go through,” she continued. “And my young life was rough. Those books encouraged my imagination. Encouraged my love for learning. A love for hearing someone else’s story. Books did that for me. They gave me connection and safety.”

Williams also saw how the pandemic affected kids’ access to books. With mobile learning playing

such a large role in schooling over the last three years, thousands of children lost their only regular access to reading physical books.

“It became very apparent how home libraries are needed during COVID when children were sent home from school,” she said. “The reading gap increased and has yet to rebound. Children across the city to rural areas are affected by this. Imagine if those families had access to books in their homes. A few books would make a difference.”

Williams hopes that more folks will help support organizations like Promising Pages that are fighting on the front lines against the prevalence of book deserts. After all, she still remembers the books that made a difference for her as a young reader — books that led to her becoming an award-winning author.

“Promising Pages recognizes the need for home libraries ‘for children to grow academically’ and their mission aligns with mine,” she told Queen City Nerve. “We both want to help young people to grow, not only academically but emotionally as well. Books, as you can tell from the diverse stories found on bookshelves, are therapy. They’re good for our mental health.”

RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM

FRI-WED

Low budget meets high art when Independent Picture House explores the path from grind house to arthouse with their latest monthly film series, which opens with an anarchic punk-rock musical masterpiece. “Do your parents know you’re Ramones?” snarls Principal Togar (Warhol superstar Mary Woronov) at Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny and Marky Ramone in the ultimate kids vs. authority epic Rock ’N’ Roll High School. Producer Roger Corman wanted to make Disco High, but director Allan Arkush and punk rock prevailed.

More: $8; March 24-29, times vary; Independent Picture House, 4237 Raleigh St.; independentpicturehouse.org

WED

3/22

Drawn from Sanskrit, Satsang refers to a traditional activity in the Hindu spiritual context where a group convenes to be with the truth. Drew McManus, lead singer of the band named Satsang, left a life of street hustling and drug dealing and headed to rural Montana to focus on the spiritual concept of Satsang to fuel his vulnerable yet positive lyrics, backed by a stripped-down, reggae-tinged and soul-infused folk soundtrack. The band has drawn comparisons to one of McManus’ inspirations, socially conscious guitarist Michael Franti. Like Franti, Satsang crafts tunes that draw power from their simplicity. More: $17.50; March 22, 8 p.m.; Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St.; neighborhoodtheatre.com

UNDEREXPOSED FILM FESTIVAL

Spread over three days and venues in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the 2023 Underexposed Film Festival spotlights 66 short films unbound by origin, genre and approach. Ice Merchants, a wordless Oscarnominated fantasy from Portugal, portrays a family harvesting ice from a perilous mountain perch for a village far below. That’s just one of 66 cinematic wonders awaiting discovery. Animation, live action, narrative, experimental and more, the shorts are programmed in themed blocks, with showings on Winthrop University campus, films for teens and children at York County Library and outdoor screenings at The Mercantile/Burro Alley. More: Free-$10; March 22-25, various locations, Rock Hill, SC; underexposedfilmfestivalyc.org

3/25

PHYGITAL FUNK OPENING DAY

A hybrid of the words physical and digital, the Gantt’s “phygital” event celebrates the museum’s new digital arts studio/innovation lab with immersive experiences that explore the future of art. Visitors can scan a QR Code to transport themselves into the Gantt’s virtual galleries or drop by the digital arts studio for a photo op. Other activities like collaging and family stop-motion animation undertakings tie in with the Gantt’s current Black American art exhibition Visions: A Study of Form. All this plus a celebration of women MCs, digital wellness checkins, author talks, music and more.

More: Free; March 25, 10 a.m.; Gantt Center, 551 S. Tryon St.; ganttcenter.org

RULES OF TELLING A STORY WITH WILL JENKINS

In this collaborative workshop, participants are encouraged to express themselves using art while working with peers. Artist-in-residence Will Jenkins — a digital content creator specializing in video, mixed media, and photography — guides patrons in learning key rules to telling a story and developing effective narratives. Participants will share their personal narratives using diverse materials to create an abstract collage. This workshop is designed to be inclusive and interactive. Attendees are encouraged to bring images, small objects, and keepsakes to include in their collages. All materials are provided. More: $15; March 26, Noon; McColl Center, 721 N. Tryon St.; mccollcenter.org

‘BEETLEJUICE’

A late addition to the pack of musicals adapting hit movies to ride a wave of nostalgia, Beetlejuice jettisons the plot of the iconic Tim Burton film that made Michael Keaton a star. Instead, the plot focuses on an alliance between goth tween Lydia, who is mourning her deceased mom, and the titular “ghost with the most,” who is less seedy than Keaton’s version. Despite a sentimental streak, the show is a madcap carnival funhouse where the jokes, which range from fresh Frankensteinian inventions to reanimated burlesque gags, fly as fast as bats from a belfry.

More: $25 and up; March 28-April 2; Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org

Photo by Greyson Plate 3/22

‘BEETLEJUICE’

Photo by Matthew Murphy 3/28-4/2

SATSANG, GRAHAM GOOD

SAT

ZOMBOY, HEYZ

English dubstep producer, songwriter and DJ Joshua Mellody, better known as Zomboy, hails from the Cornish town of Penzance, but do not confuse his bloodthirsty stadium-ready racket with fellow Englishmen Gilbert & Sullivan’s sprightly comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, unless said pirates have run aground where flesh eating harpies are tearing them to pieces. Boasting symphonic metal melodies and savage growling, Zomboy’s 2021 dubstep anthem “Valley Of Violence” is the aural equivalent of a night terror, where you struggle awake only to see a malevolent dark figure grinning at the foot of your bed.

More: $7; April 1, 9 p.m.; Blackbox Theater, 421 E. Sugar Creek Road; blackboxclt.business.site

SAT-SUN

QUEEN CITY COMEDY FOOLS’ FEST

What better way to spend April Fools’ Day than with a night of rollicking laughter, bookended by a pair of comedy workshops? Presented by Blumenthal Arts and Charlotte’s preeminent improv troupe Queen City Comedy, the fest is a comical collaboration between local improvisers and stand-ups, Canadian Kids in the Hall legend Kevin McDonald, and offbeat Queen City singer-songwriter — and longtime pal of McDonald’s — Benji Hughes. Activities include improv and comedy writing workshops with McDonald, an improv comedy jam and a full-blown comedy opera created on the fly by McDonald and Hughes.

More: $15 and up; April 1–2; Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org

SUN4/2

SPRING WORKS

Founded by Lancaster, South Carolina native Aaron Atkins in 2012, New York City and Carolinas-based Ballet Inc. set out at its inception to create ballets that continuously remove boundaries while blending classical ballet with modern dance. Avoiding a cookie-cutter approach to how a dancer should look and move, the company is noted for embracing dancers of varying sizes, shapes and ethnicities. Embracing sensuality as well as athletic power, Atkins’ choreography is praised for accentuating explosive movement within its pieces. Spring Works provides a foretaste of the surprises in store for Ballet Inc.’s debut season at the Blumenthal.

More: $25; April 2, 2 p.m.; Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org

WIKI, AKAI SOLO, PAPO2004, JAHMONTE OGBON

Noted for his slick wordplay, Charlotte MC Lord JahMonte Ogban spins a dizzying flow that leads you through a frozen hedgerow maze. Then he turns on a dime to drop a vignette or two of falling in, out or afoul of love. NYC rapper Patrick “Wiki” Morales made his mark with the sonic experimentation he crafted with Ratking. Still a nimble tongue-twisting artist, he grounds his hyperactive streak with gravitas and a focus on community. With Brooklyn rapper and Navy Blue collaborator Akai Solo and New Jersey MC Papo2004.

More: $18.30; April 4, 9 p.m.; Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St.; snugrock.com

KEVIN MCDONALD, QUEEN CITY COMEDY FOOLS’ FEST

Photo by Zombie Raptor

Photo by Jalen Marlowe

MUSIC FEATURE

A WARM WELCOME

Annual music fest founders turn to booking shows yearround

BY PAT MORAN

For Jake Woodard and Dylan Harley, 2016 kicked off a tumultuous and satisfying journey — a sevenyear span in which the two friends evolved from enthusiastic music fans to passionate podcasters to popular festival founders, and most recently founders of an alternative booking promotion company, which schedules shows spotlighting local and regional independent bands in two rapidly growing markets: Charlotte and Greenville, South Carolina.

At ages 24 and 26, Woodard and Harley might seem young to be the masterminds behind the annual three-day Welcome to the Family Fest, which has become a genre-transcending celebration of the Queen City music scene each October at The Milestone. In January, the pair drew on the expertise and experience gained in mounting the festival to begin booking other shows featuring local artists year-round. Continuity between the inclusive festival and the partners’ business direction is stressed by the name of their promoting brand: Welcome to the Family. As Woodard sees it, he and Harley’s expansion into booking is driven by a desire to lend a helping hand to the bands and music they love.

“Bands … in Charlotte have never been hungrier,” Woodard says. “They’re starting to go out on tour; they’re playing hometown shows and packing them in, but there is not much room for growth in the city. We want to change that.”

Harley, who collaborates with Woodard in hosting Welcome to the Family Fest in Charlotte, has branched out to booking shows for their promoting organization across the state line in South Carolina.

“There has been massive growth of the Greenville hardcore and heavy music scene,” Harley says. “Jake has a vast calendar of shows he’s working on, but I’m starting to dip my toes in [Greenville] so we can be developing two markets at the same time.”

“We call on each other [to book] these

individual shows,” Woodard offers. “If there are any recommendations or suggestions that either one of us feels we need to make, we collaborate. But as far as the shows themselves, I take care of Charlotte and Dylan takes care of Greenville.”

A warped beginning; a welcome success

Though both Harley and Woodard grew up outside of Cleveland, Ohio, they did not meet until years later after both had relocated to the Carolinas. Woodard’s family moved to Charlotte in 2007, and at an early age he developed an affinity for bands playing at the local level — the antithesis of national stadium and arena acts. By the time he was in high school, Woodard had become both fan and friend of acts like Winter’s Gate and Discoveries, which frequently played The Milestone.

Attending high school in Raleigh, Harley got into heavy metal and harder edged rock, playing percussion and drums. While in college at Appalachian State in Boone, Harley’s attention turned to local bands, and he became friends with members of the now-defunct all-women Charlotte hard rock band Reason/Define. In January 2018, Harley landed in Greenville, where he works as a project manager.

It was Reddit and Warped Tour that brought Harley and Woodard together. On the cusp of attending his first heavy music show, Woodard, then still in high school, asked for advice. Harley responded with band recommendations. The two future business partners subsequently met in person at a Chapel Hill concert headlined by metal act Vanna. As the two men’s friendship grew, they each delved deeper into the local music scenes in their respective cities. Then, in early 2019, Woodard posted online about wanting to start a podcast featuring interviews with local bands and reviews of local music.

In May 2019, Woodard and Harley, along with

a third partner, launched the Alt Talks Podcast Interviewing local bands for the weekly podcast, Harley and Woodard saw an unmet need emerge. Queen City artists were playing gigs with three or four performers on the bill, but nothing larger that could bring bands before bigger and more diverse audiences.

“That podcast … jumpstarted us to get the festival going,” says Harley. The partners saw a market niche they could fill in Charlotte’s music scene, while bringing performers and audiences together. They came up with the notion of a festival that would feature the hard-hitting heavy metal they loved, along with a broader alternative bill that would broaden support for the event.

“At the time, everything seemed corporate,” Harley says. “There was no support for local bands besides themselves. During our … brainstorming for a [festival] name, we ended up with ‘Welcome to the Family,’ because our goal … was to bring people together.”

There was only one catch. Though Woodard had booked a few Charlotte shows for two metalcore bands from Louisiana as part of a package called The Bayou Beatdown Tour, he and Harley had no experience booking a festival. Still the partners persevered, learning the process by trial and error.

“We said, ‘We might lose a bunch of money on this. It might flop, but at least we can say that we tried,’” Harley says. Looking back at the inaugural Welcome to the Family Fest, Woodard and Harley realize that they did things backward.

“We had bands … committed to three dates, before we had the venue,” Woodard says.

Luckily, Milestone owner Wyley Buck Boswell proved supportive of the pair’s plans. Boswell locked in the dates for the fledgling festival, and in November 2019, Welcome to the Family Fest became a reality. Realizing that a festival based on the extreme metal they loved would be a tough sell to a broader audience, Harley and Woodard came up with an autumn theme to brand the fest. They

DYLAN HARLEY (LEFT) AND JAKE WOODARD AT THE MILESTONE.

PHOTO BY GLORIA ZAVALETA

MUSIC FEATURE

also split up the event over three days according to genre, tempting music lovers who might only want to invest in a single day ticket rather than a full weekend pass.

“One day would be lighter music within the alternative scene,” Woodard says. “Then a middle day would be a little bit heavier, but more accessible. Then, the third day would be the heaviest music. That way there’s a little bit of something for everybody.”

Though their festival themes have changed each year, Woodard and Harley’s business model for the event has shifted little since the fest’s inception. After paying operational costs, which is staff and venue rental fees due to Boswell, the partners split everything the festival earns between themselves and the bands.

Based on attendance alone, the first Welcome to the Family Fest was a hit. The inaugural event drew an average of 85 people a day, so the partners decided it was a no-brainer to do the festival again. The following year, the festival was again scheduled at The Milestone, but set for October. This time, Harley and Woodard secured the venue before lining up bands.

“We put money into it,” says Harley. “We were in it for the long haul.”

In the end, however, the partners canceled the 2020 event due to the COVID pandemic and ensuing shutdown. It’s a decision they insist was the right call.

The mood leading up to the festival the following year was just as uneasy, Harley says. “Thankfully, we were able to have the festival, but it was way more restricted,” he continues. “We had a lot of safety [measures] in play.”

Despite the extra precautions, the festival, following a nighttime cityscape theme, ended up drawing close to 120 people per day. The fest’s snowballing success set the stage for the 2022 festival, arranged this time around a film noir theme. It was the first Welcome to the Family Fest where Woodard and Haley sought sponsorship. Harley secured a Monster Energy sponsorship, while Woodard netted one with Enderly Coffee Company. The partners are currently securing sponsorships for the 2023 festival. In the meantime, Boswell has made improvements and expansions to The Milestone Club.

“Buck put a large amount of effort into the facility,” Harley says. “The outdoor area is massive now. You’ve got multiple areas for tables and pop-

up tents. Last year we had an area for a disc golf set-up.”

In the course of the three annual festivals, the partners have perfected their working methods and division of labor. After agreeing on a bill for each day of the fest, each partner now contacts and signs up whichever bands they have personal relationships with. Most of the festival planning is done remotely. With Woodard in Charlotte and Harley in Greenville, the partners stay in touch online or on the phone. Several weeks before the fest goes up, Harley comes up to Charlotte. Drawing on his background as a project manager, he takes a boots-on-the-ground approach to nailing down nuts and bolts details before the show goes up.

The partners’ ability to work separately has proved to be invaluable to their efforts to launch their booking and promoting business this year. Woodard has even launched his own record label, Carved From Stone Records, in 2019. He currently works with three bands on the label, Empty Atlas in Mississippi, Northern Weather in Ohio and Charlotte’s heavy metal juggernaut Den of Wolves.

Room for improvement

A recent show booked by Welcome to the Family at Bart’s Mart in the Eastway Crossing shopping center illustrates the bookers’ facility with crafting eclectic bills. Touring band The Warhawks, an altrock outfit from Gloucester City, New Jersey, shared the stage with Charlotte art punk band Ink Swell, Queen City post-rock/math rock combo Swae and local artist Josh Allen of Halloween Costume Contest.

Welcome to the Family’s upcoming March 24 show at The Milestone features a mix of local and regional indie bands, including Slackjaw from Augusta, Georgia; Greenville’s Parris Bridge, Charlotte’s Beauty and Weymouth from Pinehurst.

In addition to shows at The Milestone and Bart’s Mart, Welcome to the Family has also booked an eclectic bill at The Spoke Easy in Elizabeth on April 15. Woodard says he’s also looking at the possibility of booking shows at The Blackbox Theater in north Charlotte.

For shows booked by Welcome to the Family as bookers/promoters, the payout varies, Woodard says. Some shows require a split, while others come with pre-determined percentages for bands and/or venues.

In the meantime, Harley and Woodard’s podcast has fallen by the wayside.

“Now that we’ve transitioned our time in the music industry to booking, we felt we couldn’t give [the podcast] the time it needed anymore,”

Woodard says. That doesn’t mean the partners aren’t still devoted to tackling the issues that spurred the creation of the podcast in the first place; Woodard and Harley aren’t afraid to articulate the continuing challenges local bands face in the Charlotte and Greenville markets.

Woodard laments a current shortage of allage shows in the Queen City, the kind of bills that fostered his love of Charlotte’s vibrant music scene when he was in high school. Harley has his own reasons for advocating that all-ages shows lead to a healthier music environment.

“A deep challenge that the Charlotte market [faces] is a severe lack of all-ages venues, plus the lateness that shows tend to start in Charlotte,” Harley says. “A problem that has come up after COVID is [many of us] decided we want to have a healthier home life, which doesn’t mean starting shows at 9 or 10 p.m. We want to be able to bring everyone to a show, start it at a reasonable hour and get home and go to bed.”

Another drawback in Charlotte is the lack of a mid-tier venue that accommodates local artists, Woodard says.

“A lack of venues that hold 300 to 400 people really hampers the local scene. We see shows announced in other markets, like Greensboro,

Raleigh and Columbia, SC, where these tours are completely skipping Charlotte,” Woodard says.

He maintains that many of these shows feature a local opener, thereby giving a hometown band the opportunity to play for 300 to 400 people who may not have heard of them before.

“It’s another opportunity that I feel is being squandered in Charlotte,” he says.

Despite these setbacks, Woodard and Harley see reasons to be optimistic about Charlotte’s music scene, and they stress how that scene can be bolstered by the transformative power a great show can have on performers and audiences.

“[A show] should be everyone coming together to support music, because at the end of the day, music is ingrained in our DNA,” Harley says.

“At the end of their set, I want each band to say, ‘I want to come back to this city. I want to play this venue again,’” Woodard adds.

He hopes local and regional bands get the message that Charlotte is a market that cares about them, and that Charlotte audiences want to see new and underexposed bands and hear their music.

“It’s all in our entire moniker: Welcome to the Family,” Woodard says, “and we want everybody to be a part of it.”

PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Robert Jon & the Wreck (Booth Playhouse)

Mega Mango w/ Woody, Jameilyara (Snug Harbor)

BLUES/JAZZ

Buddy Guy (Ovens Auditorium)

LATIN/REGGAE/WORLD

Satsang (Neighborhood Theatre)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Ivory Layne w/ Bai (Evening Muse)

Gracie Abrams (The Fillmore)

OPEN MIC

Singer Songwriter Showcase and Open Mic Variety Show (Starlight on 22nd)

THURSDAY, MARCH 23

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Heathen w/ Arrival of Autumn, Neverfall, Krypt (The Milestone)

Donna the Buffalo (Neighborhood Theatre)

Eyelids w/ The Foreign Resort, Julian Calendar (Snug Harbor)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Annie Adams (Whitney Houston tribute) (Middle C Jazz)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

BJ Barham (Evening Muse)

JAZZ/BLUES

Eric Johnson (Booth Playhouse)

ACOUSTIC/SINGER-SONGWRITER

Fred Heintz (Comet Grill)

CHRISTIAN/GOSPEL/RELIGIOUS

Steven Curtis Chapman (Knight Theater)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Big Wild (The Fillmore)

OPEN MIC

Every Other Thursday Open Mic Night w/ Finn Castelow (Tommy’s Pub)

FRIDAY, MARCH 24

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Lenny Federal (Comet Grill)

Supper Club and Certainly So (Evening Muse)

Slackjaw w/ Parris Bridge, Beauty, Wyemouth (The Milestone)

True Lilith w/ Skies of Avalon, Momophobia (The Rooster)

Tell Me Lies (Fleetwood Mac tribute) (Amos’ Southend)

The Mad Hatters (Tom Petty tribute) (Visulite Theatre)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Broadway Rave (The Underground)

Doom Flamingo w/ Jive Talk (Neighborhood Theatre)

Deep Fried Disco (Snug Harbor)

APE Audio Series (Starlight on 22nd)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Vance Joy (The Fillmore)

JAZZ/BLUES

Althea Rene (Middle C Jazz)

CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL

Charlotte Symphony: Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise (Belk Theater)

FUNK/JAM BANDS

The Q-Tip Bandits w/ Yugo, Ambyr (Petra’s)

Bill Miller Band (Coyoe Joe’s Cafe & Bar)

ACOUSTIC/SINGER-SONGWRITER

Kim Richey w/ Ben Danaher (Evening Muse)

SATURDAY, MARCH 25

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Kix w/ Testarossa (Amos’ Southend)

Nicotine Dolls (Neighborhood Theatre)

Daikaiju w/ Rugg, Flippants (Snug Harbor)

JAZZ/BLUES

Christian Sands & the High Wire Trio (Middle C Jazz)

LATIN/WORLD/REGGAE

Afincao Salsa & Bachata Social (Starlight on 22nd)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Digital Noir w/ DJ Spider & DJ [Sin]aptik (The Milestone)

CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL

Charlotte Symphony: Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise (Belk Theater)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Sawyer Fredericks Band w/ Chastity Brown (Evening Muse)

Sprockett w/ Rachel Pinson (The Rooster)

FUNK/JAM BANDS

Space Truck (Comet Grill)

ACOUSTIC/SINGER-SONGWRITER

Anthony Cirillo (Primal Brewery)

SUNDAY, MARCH 26

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Fantomex w/ Regence, Jackson Fig (The Milestone)

Blackwater Drowning w/ Strange Gods, Night Attack (The Milestone)

Mercury Dimes w/ StormWatchers, The Body Bags, Anchor Detail (Tommy’s Pub)

Abbey Road (Beatles tribute) (Neighborhood Theatre)

VÉRITÉ WILL PERFORM AT NEIGHBORHOOD THEATRE ON APRIL 3.

PHOTO BY JUSTIN HIGUCHI

JAZZ/BLUES

Omari & the Hellhounds (Comet Grill)

Gerald Albright (Middle C Jazz)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Ballantyne School of Music Spring Jam ‘23 (Amos’ Southend)

Beatfreaq (Starlight on 22nd)

MONDAY, MARCH 27

JAZZ/BLUES

The Bill Hanna Legacy Jazz Session (Petra’s)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Crunk Witch w/ IIOIOIOII, Solemn Shapes, B-Villainous (The Milestone)

OPEN MIC

Find Your Muse Open Mic (Evening Muse)

TUESDAY, MARCH 28

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

KANKAN (The Underground)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Cosmic Funk Jam (Crown Station)

Lost Cargo: Tiki Social Party (Petra’s)

FUNK/JAM BANDS

Red Rocking Chair (Comet Grill)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Wastoid with Ken Mujo, The You Suck Flying Circus, Cosmic Twynk (The Milestone)

Blood Brothers (Neighborhood Theatre)

Jordyn Zaino w/ Galloway, Lil Degen (Snug Harbor)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Larry & Joe w/ Quisol (Evening Muse)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Joshua Bassett (The Underground)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Lucki (The Fillmore)

OPEN MIC

Open Mic Variety Show (Starlight on 22nd)

THURSDAY, MARCH 30

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Smile on the Sinner w/ Cohen (The Milestone)

JAZZ/BLUES

Johnn Britt (Middle C Jazz)

Bywater Call (Neighborhood Theatre)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Clay Street Unit w/ Wily, Fox N’ Vead (Amos’ Southend)

Wyatt Easterling w/ Caroline Cotter (Evening Muse)

LATIN/WORLD/REGGAE

Combo Chimbita w/ Curiosidades de Bombrile (Snug Harbor)

FRIDAY, MARCH 31

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Lenny Federal (Comet Grill)

Eluveitie (The Underground)

Dead Senate w/ Austin Royale, Jooselord, Ape Piss, Youngdeathgod (The Milestone)

It’s Snakes w/ EZ Shakes, Neon Deaths (Petra’s) Hightower w Hellfire 76, Nevada Rock, Leaving Echos, Shadow’s Edge (The Rooster)

King Cackle w/ The Menders, Soda City Riot (Snug Harbor)

GoGo Pilot (Tommy’s Pub)

Cactus Dayjob w/ The Sour (Visulite Theatre)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Dylan Scott (Coyote Joe’s)

Time Sawyer (Evening Muse)

JAZZ/BLUES

Jackiem Joyner (Middle C Jazz)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Little Stranger w/ Jarv, Pip the Pansy (Amos’ Southend)

FUNK/JAM BANDS

New Potato Caboose (Neighborhood Theatre)

SATURDAY, APRIL 1

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Dinner Time w/ Juniper Avenue (Evening Muse)

Pop Evil (The Underground)

The Coursing w/ Kill the Imposter, Resistor, Violent Life Violent Death, Mafia (The Milestone)

On the Border (Eagles tribute) (Amos’ Southend)

Third Eye (Tool tribute) (The Rooster)

The Ruff’tons w/ The Bleeps, Sex Negative (Skylark Social Club)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Young Nudy (The Fillmore)

JAZZ/BLUES

Alexander Zonjic w/ James Lloyd (Middle C Jazz)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Erick Baker w/ Emily Wyrick (Evening Muse)

Arkansauce w/ The Local Boys (Neighborhood Theatre)

EXPERIMENTAL/CROSS-GENRE

MOA w/ The Mystery Plan, That Guy Smitty (Petra’s)

Lil Skritt w/ Patois Counselors, Noir Noir (Snug Harbor)

ACOUSTIC/SINGER-SONGWRITER

Tosco Music Party (Knight Theater)

David Childers (Comet Grill)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Blow Your Head/Saturday Sounds (Starlight on 22nd)

Southern Culture on the Skids w/ Boom Unit Brass Band (Visulite Theatre)

SUNDAY, APRIL 2

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

The Winery Dogs (The Underground)

Authority Zero w/ Mercy Music (The Milestone)

JAZZ/BLUES

Joe Grandsen & Kenny Banks (Middle C Jazz)

Wayward Blues & Co. (The Rooster)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Linda Eder (Knight Theater)

MONDAY, APRIL 3

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

North Star Boys (The Underground)

Vérité (Neighborhood Theatre)

TUESDAY, APRIL 4

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

WIKI w/ AKAI Solo, Papo2oo4, Jah-Monte Ogbon (Snug Harbor)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Postmodern Jukebox (Knight Theater)

Cosmic Funk Jam (Crown Station)

VISIT QCNERVE.COM FOR THE FULL SOUNDWAVE LISTING.

BUDDY GUY WILL PERFORM AT OVENS AUDITORIUM ON MARCH 22.

PHOTO BY BRIAN MCMILLEN

THE FAST AND THE CASUAL

Manny Flores builds a dynasty with Que Hospitality

BY DEZANII LEWIS

After Picante, a more than decade-long staple in west Charlotte’s Wesley Heights neighborhood, closed down last fall, many wondered what, if anything, would fill its shoes and if it would be able to stand its ground.

When Manny Flores opened Que Fresa, a fastcasual taqueria similar to Picante, in its place, he hoped to continue in the tradition that Picante established while forging his own.

But first he made some menu adjustments.

“[Picante] was more burritos and bowls,” Flores said. “They didn’t have a bar program, they just had fountain sodas.”

In addition to adding bar service, Que Fresa has also expanded their menu options for tacos all while being affordable – some tacos come in at under $5.

It may seem risky to open a restaurant so similar to the one that previously occupied the space and shut down, but according to Flores, who remains friends with the previous owners of Picante, it

wasn’t a failure. They just wanted to focus on their packaging business. That works for Flores; he needs packaging.

“We actually still work together,” Flores said. “We purchase a lot of our eco-friendly to-go containers from him.”

Flores has reason to be confident in his latest opening. After all, this is far from his first venture. The founder of Que Hospitality also runs Que Fresa Taqueria + Bar’s sister concept, Que Onda Tacos + Tequila. Que Fresa is the sixth location he’s opened under the Que Hospitality umbrella, and he has no plans to slow down.

“We’ve got two [locations] in the pipeline,” he said. “By the end of the year, we’ll be at seven locations.”

He’s opened up a new location nearly every year since 2015, with breaks in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.

“We always knew we wanted to do one to two restaurants a year,” he said.

Que Onda and Que Fresa are two sides of the same coin in that they’re both fast-casual, but they each have their differences.

“We created [Que Onda] to be a fast casual taqueria, heavily focused on tacos, some appetizers,

a lot of grab-and-go,” he said. “But we also built a bar in Que Fresa, our newest brand, to have full service as well. Full tequila program, full cocktail program to have that hybrid fast-casual feel that you can order at the counter, pick up, grab and go, or do the full service at the limited seats at the bar.”

Que Onda, on the other hand, is more serviceoriented, he explained.

The decor in each location is also different, as is the ambience, the music, and the style of service.

Flores has Que Ondas located in Uptown, Matthews, Highland Creek and University City, with one set to open soon in Plaza Midwood, filling the space left empty by Coaltrane’s on Central Avenue.

He mentioned that he was purposeful in placing his first Que Fresa location so close to the Uptown Que Onda, just on the other side of Bank of America Stadium.

“We knew that they’re going to be so different that we could coexist,” he said. “We can put them side by side and they’ll be different.”

Growing up in restaurants

For Flores, being a restaurateur was in his blood. His father owned a couple of restaurants and his

COURTESY OF QUE HOSPITALITY QUE ONDA OFFERS FLAVORS THAT PUT A MEXICAN TWIST ON GLOBAL DISHES.

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE

mother, a beautician, had a few beauty salons.

“I’ve been in the restaurant business pretty much all my life,” he said. “I was always around entrepreneurs.”

Before he became the restaurateur he is today, he lived in Washington D.C. for 35 years. He went to University of Maryland and obtained a degree in architecture. However, he was always passionate about restaurants, having grown up in them because of his father and working in them throughout college to pay for classes.

After graduating, he went back into the restaurant business.

“I really only had two employers, and both are amazing restaurateurs and celebrity chefs now,” he said. “One is Jose Andres.”

Flores helped the famous Spanish chef open several restaurants and became immersed in the many facets of the restaurant industry. Once he’d felt he gained enough experience with Andres, Flores began working with Richard Sandoval overseeing national and international operations.

Sandoval owned approximately 60 restaurants at the time, which required Flores to travel a lot. Once Flores met his wife, Paola, he knew he needed to make some changes.

“It got to the point back in 2014 or so that my wife and I decided [I was] doing too much traveling, and at this point, I need to do something for myself,” he said. “I had the experience, the knowledge and know-how, and the connections.”

The decision brought Flores, his wife and their two boys to Charlotte. He had frequented the city during layovers while working for Sandoval.

“A couple of times I’d get stuck here and really fell in love with the city and how accessible it was,” he said. “[I] saw a big opening for creating the style of food that we do, which is more modern, heavily focused on presentations, traditional flavors, but not traditional entrees.

“So that really catapulted us to take the leap of faith, move to Charlotte, leave everything in D.C.,” he continued. “My family is there. I have a very large family, but I knew that in order for us to create our first restaurant, which would essentially keep me home and not traveling with my employers, we’d have to open a restaurant, and not in D.C. just because it’s not affordable.”

He opened his first Que Onda location in Huntersville in 2015, an Uptown location in 2016, and has continued the growth from there.

Building from scratch

Flores had taken all of his past experiences and put them into opening his many locations. Not only did he utilize his restaurant skills, he also employed his architecture degree.

“The strange coincidence about my degree in architecture is that the first four restaurants I actually designed and built on my own,” he said. “My experience in design, my experience in construction management, my experience in the feel for this space, the flow, the good side of architecture, and what I call the business side of architecture flows right through me.

“So when I choose a restaurant, a lot of the design comes from me, so I actually apply everything that I went to school for, and now I don’t feel that it was sort of wasted time or wasted energy or anything like that,” he continued. “I actually use it in a commercial setting for restaurants, and even when I was with [Andres and Sandoval] that I worked with after I graduated, I would use that knowledge to create environments and experiences through architecture in full sit down restaurants and hotels. So it’s helped me tremendously.”

Flores’ unique background allows him to manage multiple aspects of his businesses.

In addition to using his architecture background, he’s also engaged his culinary side. He described the food at his restaurant as a “Mexican twist on global dishes.” One of the examples he provided was pollo guajillo, which is a spin on chicken Parmesan.

“So how did we put the twist on it, so to speak?”

first, but in the end, Flores said it worked.

“It took a lot of training from training the staff to get to the point where we are now, we could actually take the queso dip off the menu now and it wouldn’t impact us because of what we do and how the city has grown as well,” he said.

Don’t worry, though, he said the queso dip isn’t going anywhere.

For Flores, the plan is to just keep growing. He said he wants to open several more locations over the next few years and, barring anymore setbacks like the pandemic, so far things are looking good.

“We’re up to 200 employees now, so it’s been a blessing,” he said. “It’s been a long ride. It’s been hard at times, amazing at times, not so great, but all in all, the passion we have for hospitality and creating opportunities for others is kind of what drives us.”

he asked. “So you have your chicken breast. Chicken Parmesan has Parmesan cheese melted on top. Finish on the salamander [a broiler]. We do that, but we throw this guajillo, mild pepper sauce, on top, this red sauce on top with bacon, pico de gallo, and avocado. Finish in the salamander for the cheese to get nice and crispy.”

Flores also talked about another dish they’ve put a spin on: fish and chips, which encompasses a Mexican beer batter, Valentina sauce, and a Mexican slaw among several other components.

People are receptive to these flavors now, but that wasn’t always the case.

“I don’t want to say that we had anything negative happen or pushback or anything like that, but definitely the restaurant scene in 2016 is not where it is right now,” he said.

One example he provided was the lack of queso on the menu. Patrons were demanding queso, so Flores met them halfway. Continuing in the same vein as his other Mexican twists on global dishes, he put his own spin on queso, and the patrons loved it. Flores says it taught him a valuable lesson.

“I think the only impact it really had was just, honestly, I think the word is it humbled us,” he said. “It got us to the point where we said we have to listen to the customer more than our palates. I wouldn’t even consider that a setback because we learned from it.”

The mission was to introduce customers to new flavors while simultaneously giving them something they were familiar with. It was tricky at

COURTESY OF QUE HOSPITALITY MANNY FLORES

TRIVIA TEST

CROSSWORD SUDOKU

BY LINDA THISTLE

BY FIFI RODRIGUEZ

1. AD SLOGANS: What company advertises its clothing with the ad slogan, “Quality never goes out of style”?

2. SCIENCE: What is the tallest grass in the world?

3. MOVIES: What is the name of the camp in “Friday the 13th”?

4. GEOGRAPHY: What is the term when two water streams join to form a larger stream?

5. INVENTIONS: What is Tim BernersLee credited with inventing?

6. ANATOMY: Where are the quadriceps located?

7. LITERATURE: Which poet wrote a six-volume biography of President Lincoln?

8. TELEVISION: Timothy Lovejoy is a minister on which animated TV series?

9. ANIMAL KINGDOM: Yaks are native to which region?

PLACE A NUMBER IN THE EMPTY BOXES IN SUCH A WAY THAT EACH ROW ACROSS, EACH COLUMN DOWN AND EACH SMALL 9-BOX SQUARE CONTAINS ALL OF THE NUMBERS ONE TO NINE.

10. U.S. PRESIDENTS: Before he was elected president, which of the founding fathers attended the coronation of Napoleon at Notre Dame Cathedral?

LIFESTYLE COLUMN

AERIN IT OUT BEING THE CHANGE

Change Please Coffee opens new location in Charlotte’s Belmont neighborhood

BY AERIN SPRUILL

“I was homeless,” a new acquaintance shared midsentence while having dinner at La Belle Helene last week. We were chatting about the challenges he’s faced trying to fulfill his purpose of delivering LGBTQ-focused nightlife destinations that also give back to the larger community (i.e. employing those without work) when the words just came out.

I stopped chewing the forfeited caviar I’d scraped off his deviled egg, the brininess of the privileged delicacy suddenly turning sour in my stomach.

Presumably pink-cheeked with completely unnecessary unease, I raised my gaze to meet his. I was worried my face would show too little or too much unwarranted concern. His head was held high and his eyes were stern, but his demeanor was collected, posture unbothered, and his passion for community unbending.

He gave me a chance to digest, but not long enough for me to make things awkward or fall victim to the autotriggered, unemotional response of “I’m so sorry,” which absolutely no one wants to hear. He spoke his truth, he was proud of where he’d been, who he was and continues to be, and he certainly didn’t need my empathy.

When it comes to community challenges like houselessness, I’ve always felt wildly unequipped to properly verbalize my deep sadness, frustration, or thoughts on how to make a difference. I’m often left feeling like a child being told some version of: “If you can’t say nothin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” Or a complaining employee needing a real quick boss check: “Come to me with solutions, not problems.”

Either leaves a taste of helplessness that ends in a far more embarrassing idiomatic response: “Ignorance is bliss.” And then I (read: we) can relinquish responsibility and march forward without a sense of guilt.

But what happens if we continue to turn the other cheek? Simply put, there will soon be few places to go or cheeks to turn. Enter social revolutionaries like Change Please, a UK-born nonprofit whose mission is to “brew change” and tackle homelessness with every cup of coffee served (more on that in a minute). If my early synchronistic dinner convo was a humble pregame, the grand opening of the inaugural U.S. Change Please Training Academy and coffee shop at the Innovation Barn on Seigle Avenue was the hopeful nightcap.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Innovation Barn, it opened

in September 2021 as part of an Envision Charlotte initiative that combines entrepreneurial businesses, zero-waste initiatives, and circular economy (read: a space to minimize waste and maximize the use of resources) projects. Think recycling, refurbishment, and reuse — like Sam Fleming’s aquaponics lab, for example. It would appear that Change Please Coffee makes the perfect addition!

According to MeckNC.gov, there were an estimated 3,260 individuals experiencing homelessness in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area as of Oct. 31, 2022. It doesn’t seem a staggering number when compared to the UK’s 8,239 “rough sleepers.” But when you consider respective populations — 1.2 million in Mecklenburg County versus the UK at 67.5 million, the future of homelessness, if left ignored in the Queen City, looks pretty discouraging.

This, of course, is compounded by Charlotte’s explosive growth rates, surging rent prices, cost of living increases, lack of shelter availability, dwindling public support systems, and a host of other socioeconomic factors unique to the States. That being said, with an 85% onward employment success rate, 500 training graduates, 5,000 nights of accommodations, and millions of dollars raised to fight homelessness across eight countries, it would seem that Change Please proves a solid case study to offer a silver lining of hope in an otherwise seemingly bleak landscape.

Change Please deploys a “hand-up versus handout” recipe for disrupting the cycle of homelessness, which starts with employing unhoused individuals and giving

on-the-job, expert barista training selling Change Please coffee for double the minimum wage. But that’s not where their commitment ends.

The company, which opened its first U.S. location on UNC Charlotte’s campus in 2022, understands that true change isn’t achieved in isolation; they work in tandem with — versus in friction against — the efforts of local community organizations already doing the damn thing. Through strategic implementation and partnership, they can take a multi-prong approach to deliver simultaneous and continued development of human dynamism, cultivation of a positive self-view, wraparound support services for everything from mental health to childcare, secure housing, and onward/ongoing future employment.

The challenge ahead for pioneers like those at Change Please won’t be an easy one, as much of the road has yet to be paved in Charlotte, but one fact remains the same: If we continue to view homelessness as a “them” problem versus a collective “us” problem, the “problem” of home security will never be addressed.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

A BARISTA WORKS AT CHANGE PLEASE COFFEE’S NEW LOCATION IN THE INNOVATION BARN.

PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Some unsettling facts about a past situation could come to light. And ,while you’d love to deal with it immediately, it’s best to get more information to support your case.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) A straightforward approach to a baffling situation is best. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into an already messy mass of tangles and lies. Deal with it and move on.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Don’t be discouraged or deterred by a colleague’s negative opinion about your ideas. It could actually prove to be helpful when you finally get around to finalizing your plan.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Ignore that sudden attack of “modesty” and step up to claim the credit you so rightly earned. Remember: A lot of people are proud of you and want to share in your achievements.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) A financial “deal” that seems to be just right for you Leos and Leonas could be grounded more in gossamer than substance. Get an expert’s advice to help you check it out.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Don’t ignore that suddenly cool or even rude attitude from someone who is close to you. Asking them for an explanation could reveal a misunderstanding that you were completely unaware of.

BORN THIS WEEK: You have a way of seeing the best in people and helping them live up to their potential.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Unless you have sound knowledge, and not just an opinion, it’s best not to step into a family dispute involving a legal matter, regardless of whom you support. Leave that to the lawyers.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) An awkward situation presents the usually socially savvy Scorpian with a problem. But a courteous and considerate approach soon helps clear the air and ease communication.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21)

A calmer, less tense atmosphere prevails through much of the week, allowing you to restore your energy levels before tackling a new challenge coming up by week’s end.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19)

Your approach to helping with a friend or family member’s problem could boomerang unless you take time to explain your method — and how and why it (usually!) works.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) Someone who gave you a lot of grief might ask for a chance for the two of you to make a fresh start. You need to weigh the sincerity of the request carefully before giving them your answer.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Too much fantasizing about an upcoming decision could affect your judgment. Better to make your choices based on what you know now rather than what you might learn later.

PUZZLE ANSWERS

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) The adventurous Aries won’t be disappointed with taking on a new challenge, despite some initial misgivings. Look for this move to open other opportunities down the line.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Let that beautiful Bovine smile not only put you at ease, but also show that you’re ready, willing and more than able to confound the naysayers around you. Also, a new admirer has important news.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Be careful how you handle a relationship that you’re hoping to save. You already have the facts on your side. Avoid weakening your position by embellishing it with unnecessary dramatics.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Taking definitive stands isn’t easy for the often-wavering Moon Child. But you not only need to stay with your decision, but also reassure others that it was the right thing to do.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) As a proud Lion, you’re right to be upset about those who might be lying about you to others. But the best revenge is proving them wrong by succeeding at what you set out to do.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Caution is still advised before making a financial commitment to a “promising” project. Look for the facts behind the fluff. Meanwhile, devote the weekend to loved ones.

BORN THIS WEEK: You have a gift for bringing people together. You would make a very fine judge or counselor.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) A Taurus offers comfort and advice as you deal with an upsetting event. Use this as a learning experience that will help you avoid similar problems in the future.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) A romantic situation creates some chaos for single Scorpions. But it’s well worth the effort to work things out. A trusted friend can offer some helpful advice.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21)

Expect to make new friends as your social circle expands. Also, remember to tell that family member how proud you are of their achievements.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) New ventures continue to be favored. With your selfconfidence rising all the time, you’ll want to see how well you can do with a new challenge. So, go to it.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) This is a good time for the usually serious-minded Aquarian to let loose and enjoy some fun times. Expect to get good news about a workplace issue.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Changed plans might upset some people, but your needs should be respected. Offer explanations when necessary. Don’t let yourself get talked into changing your decisions

7. Carl Sandburg.

8. “The Simpsons.”

9. Tibet, China.

10. James Monroe and his wife Elizabeth.

SAVAGE LOVE SIZE PEACE

The core of the issue

BY DAN SAVAGE

I’m a 41-year-old lesbian. Back when I was 26, I weighed 125 pounds and had a girlfriend. Sex with “Amy” was mind-blowing. Amy was exactly my type from head to toe and she had more experience than me, so she really opened me up sexually. Our physical chemistry was off the charts. Unfortunately, Amy and I broke up (dysfunctional relationship issues), and then I moved to the West Coast. Fast-forward to age 31. I weighed 165 pounds, but I carried it well. Then I fell into a severe depression and had to live with my parents for a while. Amy lived about two hours away from me at that time. She’d seen me at my new weight and was still interested in me. She called me every night for months. After months of talking, we decided to meet up in person. However, because of depression meds and “mom’s cooking” and whatever else, I was approximately 200 pounds when we finally met up. Amy and I started sleeping together again, but it was obvious that she wasn’t into me physically anymore. The insanely good sex we once had together never returned. Within a few months she told me she was attracted to other people, and we ended things.

I want to be very, very clear when I say that I do not blame Amy at all for losing attraction to me due to my weight gain. Going from 125 to 200 pounds within five years is an extreme amount of weight gain. But the experience broke my heart and I have not had sex or even kissed anyone since. That’s nine years of celibacy. I was (and am) deeply ashamed of my body. I continued to receive treatment for depression — lots of different psych meds, lots of group and individual therapy, etc., and my mental health has slowly but steadily improved — but I also gained more weight — and I lost every last drop of self-acceptance about my body. I went from loving my body, to being OK with it, to being dumped for it, to becoming severely obese. I finally started seeing a weight loss doctor last year and have begun to slowly lose some of the weight — I’m down to 230 pounds from my 275 max — and I REALLY want to have sex again, but I can’t even stay on dating sites for more than a few days before deleting my profile because I’m so horribly ashamed of how I look. I used to be young!

And hot! And pretty! And hot girl Amy wanted to fuck me! Constantly! I don’t want to get back together with Amy, not at all, but I miss the kind of life-altering sex she and I used to have when my body was at its best.

How do I even begin trying to start dating and having sex again when I was dumped for getting fat and have such self-loathing and shame about my body?

FAT MIDDLE-AGED CELIBATE LESBO

“To begin to work on accepting our bodies it’s essential to get to the core of the issue,” said Elle Chase, a certified sexologist, sex, relationship, and body-image coach, and the author of Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Sex Positions to Empower Your Sex Life.

And at the core of your issue, FMACL, you’re not going to find your weight gain or the trauma of being dumped by hot girl Amy. No, according to Chase, your issues go much deeper, FMACL, and their cultural, not individual.

“From the day we are born, we are inundated with made-up, ever-changing standards for beauty and our bodies,” said Chase. “These standards are rooted in systems of oppression like patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. These man-made ideas of attractiveness and desirability distort, skew, and infect our perception and opinion of ourselves — and others — convincing us that we must look a certain way in order to be sexually desirable or deserving. But that’s a lie!”

Because sexual attraction is highly subjective — there are lots of different people out there, FMACL, and different people find different bodies and different body types and different personalities attractive.

“It’s just like art,” said Chase. “We could be looking at the same painting and have two very different feelings or opinions about it. And neither of us is wrong.”

Differing tastes in art may be easy for us to wrap our heads around. We’re not going to take it personally when a friend — or a stranger on a dating app — disagrees with us about pointillism or surrealism or cubism. The stakes are higher when we’re the painting someone else thinks is beautiful (when we don’t feel beautiful) or doesn’t feel is beautiful (when we wish they would).

“When what you see in the mirror doesn’t match that artificial standard it’s hard for your brain to see you as the inherently sexually desirable human that you are,” said

Chase. “Your brain becomes an unreliable narrator trying to protect you from the pain of rejection by telling you that you aren’t attractive or sexually desirable enough to deserve a sex life.”

So, how does one — how do you — dismantle this, er, system of self-oppression?

“Here’s a ‘Cliffs Notes’ version with some hopefully useful tips,” said Chase. “FMACL needs to rewire her brain by disrupting negative self-talk patterns. If she hates what she looks like and her inner dialog is endorsing [that self-hatred], she should acknowledge her feelings — if you feel like crap, you feel like crap, and it’s important to validate that — and then say something true but neutral to herself. Something like, ‘This is what my body looks like today,’ or, ‘I feel ugly, but feelings aren’t facts.’ My favorite mantra: ‘What I think of my body is none of my business.’ Don’t be discouraged. I know it’s challenging but it’s a lifelong practice that I myself continue to do daily.”

As for dating — as for putting yourself out there on a dating app and staying out there — Chase advises lowering the stakes for now.

“FMACL can the pressure off herself for now by just dating for practice,” said Chase. “The goal is not to get laid or find a new partner, but to grow more at ease and confident with herself. Notice how it feels to go out with people and have conversations, share experiences, even flirt. She should pay attention to how she’s feeling rather than what she assumes her date is feeling. Prioritize her own joy, comfort, and desires over all else right now — she deserves nothing less.”

To learn more about Elle Chase, her work, and the services she provides, visit her website ellechase.com. Chase is offering readers of Savage Love 15% off a session or package if you use the code SAVAGE.

This is a question I should have asked you ten years ago! I’m a 68-year-old GWM, who was sexually assaulted by my (also gay) medical provider, multiple times, until I finally distanced myself from him both socially and professionally. I vacillated for several years whether or not I should report him, but never did. Recently, I discovered that he apparently committed suicide after another patient accused him of multiple sexual assaults. I contacted this man’s attorneys, and they are moving forward with a lawsuit against the clinic and the provider’s estate. At their request, I have agreed to provide a deposition. They have also suggested that I consider filing a suit. I am a happily married man, retired, and living in Europe. Should I just let all this go? Or should I jump into the fire with a lawsuit?

DECLINE OR CHALLENGE

Agreeing to be deposed — or agreeing to file an affidavit — in support of the other patient known to have been assaulted by your former medical provider… that’s no small thing. So, even if you decide not to file a lawsuit yourself, DOC, you aren’t just letting this go. You’re doing something meaningful and significant; you’re helping

another victim get the justice and restitution he feels he needs and helping to hold the clinic where you, this man, and most likely other men were sexually assaulted.

So, the question isn’t, “Am I going to sit this out?”, as you aren’t sitting this out. The question instead is, “Am I going to file a lawsuit of my own?” And the answer to that question… well, that’s not an answer I can provide you with, DOC. Because the answer depends on what you need, DOC, to feel whole. If you don’t want the hassle and don’t need a settlement, you aren’t obligated to get more involved than you have already — and, again, agreeing to be deposed (by both sides) in a case like this is no small thing. Justice is being done, institutions are being held accountable, and you’re helping. If you want to file a lawsuit of your own, you should. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.

Send your burning questions to mailbox@savage.love; podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love!

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