VOLUME 1: ISSUE 24 OCTOBER 23,- NOVEMBER 5, 2019 - QCNERVE.COM
Voting ends nov 1
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Charlotte’s Cultural Pulse NEWS & CULTURE STAFF
PUBLISHER • Justin LaFrancois jlafrancois@qcnerve.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF • Ryan Pitkin rpitkin@qcnerve.com STAFF WRITER • Pat Moran pmoran@qcnerve.com ART DIRECTOR • Dana Vindigni dvindigni@qcnerve.com MARKETING MANAGER • Jayme Johnson jjohnson@qcnerve.com
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To place an advertisement please call 980-349-3029 Queen City Nerve welcomes submissions of all kinds. Please send submissions or story pitches to rpitkin@qcnerve.com. Queen City Nerve is published every other Wednesday by Nerve Media Productions LLC. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Queen City Nerve is located in Advent Coworking at 933 Louise Ave., Charlotte, NC, 28204. First Issue of Queen CIty Nerve free. Each additional issue $5.
6 Lift the Fallen by Yen Duong Mecklenburg County opens state’s first jail psych unit 4 Editor’s Note by Ryan Pitkin 8 The Seeker by Katie Grant 9 The Scanner by Ryan Pitkin
ARTS
10 A Witness to Genocide by Perry Tannenbaum Three Bone Theatre takes up Holocaust survivor’s story
HALLOWEEN GUIDE 2019 12 The Man Behind the Masks by Pat Moran Mikey Sevier puts a face to all things dark and horrible 13 Local Halloween Events to Die For
LIFELINE
16 How not to kill your social life
MUSIC
18 An Intrepid Endeavor by Grantt Britt Rick Booth’s golden rule has carried Intrepid Artsists for 25 years 20 Soundwave
FOOD & DRINK
22 The Ritual of Inclusion by Ryan Pitkin New coffee shop picks up where Comic Girl left off 23 The Newbie Foodie by Darrell Horwitz 24 The Buzz
LIFESTYLE 26 Sudoku 27 Crossword 28 Horoscope 30 Savage Love
Cover and Illustration Design by Dana Vindigni
EDITOR’S NOTE
WE INVEST IN
CHARLOTTE
THE BRASS TAX
Does anyone know what we’re voting for?
• $544 million in loans to homeowners, small businesses and nonprofits
BY RYAN PITKIN
• $15.5 million in revitalizing Charlotte neighborhoods • Fair and affordable financial services with competitive rates Deposits federally insured up to $250,000 Equal Opportunity Lender Ownership & Economic Opportunity for All
1065 Providence Road, Charlotte (704) 554-7201 • www.self-help.org
Tune in to WCCB News Edge every week night at 10:30 p.m.
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Get a glimpse at the next issue with our editor-in-chief every other Tuesday night
WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THE ARTS TAX? It seems like everyone has an opinion, and yes, that may just seem like the situation to me as editor of a paper that focuses heavily on arts and culture. I’m well aware that for a local-only election in which there are very few competitive races, we’re about to learn very quickly that a majority of people living simply don’t give a shit which way this referendum goes, regardless of the endless discussion from local media and members of the arts scene. But in the end, it is inarguably an important issue, so humor me for a minute. For those of you who don’t give a shit (yet), let me fill you in on where we’re at with the so-called arts tax. On July 2, the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted to place a quartercent sales tax increase on the November 5 ballot, early voting for which has already begun. The BOCC has proposed to allocate 45% of the estimated $55-million in revenue gained from the tax increase to arts and culture, with the rest going to parks and greenways (34%), education (16%) and smaller towns in Mecklenburg County (5%). On Sept. 4, the BOCC voted to allow a restructured Arts & Science Council to govern the potential revenue that will come from a new quarter-cent sales tax if it’s passed. However, board members stopped short on deciding who will make the final decisions on grant spending. According to that model, a “reenvisioned” ASC would downsize, cease all programming and no longer do fundraising. According to the county presentation, the new ASC board of directors would ensure that equity was the leading priority for distribution of funds throughout the county. Many folks have come out with strong opinions about the tax, and perhaps most interestingly, these opinions don’t appear to be split along any of the predictable lines — political party, race, tax bracket, etc. An Oct. 28 live taping of Charlotte Talks dedicated to the potential sales tax increase will featur former Republican Mecklenburg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour and current Democrat Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham standing together as opponents of the increase. [Note: If you can’t make it, look for a review of the
discussion at qcnerve.com. You can also find recent op-eds about the sales tax from city council member Braxton Winston (for) and New South Progressives co-founder Ray McKinnon (against) on our website.] Cotham and Ridenhour’s respective opinions are each indicative of common arguments against the tax. As a longtime advocate for the homeless and underprivileged, Cotham believes arts should not be the county’s priority when spending a $26 million windfall. As an organizer with the Mecklenburg Tax Alliance, Ridenhour doesn’t believe we should be upping the sales tax at all, regardless of what it would be spent on. I tend to lean more toward Cotham’s point of view, but arts funding does help deal with problems we see with inequity in our community, if indirectly. For example, I mentor a local boy that I connected with through Big Brothers Big Sisters Central Carolina and have been hanging out with for five years now.Over those years, we’ve taken part in any number of programs at local arts institutions like the Harvey B. Gantt Center, where most recently he attended a coding workshop and took to it naturally, inspiring us to look into more ways to get him involved in coding. Those are the programs that need funding, and I wholeheartedly support doing so in any way we can. But the question remains: Where exactly is the money going? And how can we funnel some of that into funding similar arts programming in schools and other more accessible places? At the Sept. 4 meeting, Commissioner Trevor Fuller expressed concern that the ASC would be in charge of spending $25 million without any input from elected officials, and county manager Dena Diorio pointed out that ASC gave out 800 grants last year alone, making it difficult for the BOCC to oversee each decision. To Fuller’s point, county and city representatives would sit on ASC’s newly structured board, but the confusion at that meeting convinced me that the county just isn’t ready to vote on this tax raise. Let’s come back to it next year, when a presidential election will bring exponentially more people to the polls, and everyone involved will be better informed about what it is they’re voting on. Informed people give a shit. RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM
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PHOTO BY YEN DUONG
LIFT THE FALLEN
Mecklenburg County opens state’s first jail psych unit
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T
BY YEN DUONG
HE BOTTOM HALF of a small basketball court is covered by cheerful yellow paint and speckled with marker doodles of smiling stick figures, flowers and sets of two humps to indicate birds in a sunny sky. The yellow matches stripes on the linoleum floor in the main area, set off by columns in cheerful pastels. Numbered doors with small windows lead to small rooms — jail cells. The Mecklenburg County Central Detention Center psychiatric unit — known as “McP” — looks like a school, but it’s actually North Carolina’s first behavioral health unit located in a county jail. Inmates, or residents as the sheriff calls them, take daily medications, attend group classes and participate in therapy with the aim of getting better before returning to the general population in the jail or being released to the outside world. “I feel [being in jail] can cause mental issues because you can’t just come and go as you please anymore,” said guard Melissa Russell, clad in a gray polo with a “Behavioral Health” logo rather than the usual police uniform. “This program is designed to help them work through their issues … It’s to show them different ways to process what they’re feeling and what they’re going through.” The voluntary program, which opened in August, has space for 28 male residents. Right now, six men take part in the program. Each were diagnosed with a mental illness by a counselor upon intake. The unit separated from the rest of the jail and relatively quiet. “One of our goals was to make sure that they’re good to be able to function in a normal pod in
Inside the Mecklenburg County Jail psych unit
“WHEN PEOPLE SAY ‘WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?’ [I RESPOND] ‘I’M PREPARING YOUR NEIGHBOR.’” Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden another unit,” said Sgt. Charles Pearson. “Some of them … they can’t function in another pod, they can’t be around a lot of people, they can’t follow orders. They end up in our segregation unit, and we don’t want that.” Segregation is the department’s word for solitary confinement, which is the polar opposite of what inmates with mental health issues need, according to Luke Woollard, an attorney with the legal advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina. “These folks with mental illness end up isolated … which often causes them to get worse because they’re not given any other care,” Woollard said. “[They need] the ability to get out of cells, access trained professionals like psychologists and psychiatrists [and] access medications they’ve been prescribed.”
To join the jail psychiatric unit, residents must participate in a full day of classes during the week, take their medications and not commit any violence. Behavioral health counselors are contracted from a Tennessee-based company that provides staffing for correctional facilities and rehabilitation centers. Pearson said they want to get a federally approved methadone treatment program running in the unit by the end of the year. Methadone is one of three drugs used for medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, to treat opioid use disorder. Residents from the general population would also visit the unit for MAT treatment. Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said he put together the unit without additional funding after chatting with Pearson, modeling it after a similar unit in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s looking forward to buying cozy, high-backed chairs
for a “living room” effect and finding funds to open a women’s unit next year. “We want to be almost a community,” said McFadden, whose name is represented in the “McP” nickname, finished by Peason’s initial. “For me, I think it’s what we should’ve been doing the whole time.” McFadden continued: “When people say ‘Why are you doing this?’ [I respond] ‘I’m preparing your neighbor.’” Per the U.S. Department of Justice, 95% of people who enter prison eventually return to their communities. “It’s helping our citizens, we want to return them back … we want to return that citizen back better.” A 2017 Disability Rights North Carolina report noted that North Carolina jail suicide rates are
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higher than the national average: nearly 46% of N.C. jail deaths are from suicide versus 35% of U.S. jail deaths in 2014. In 2018, under Sheriff Irwin Carmichael, five Mecklenburg County jail inmates died in just five months. Three of those deaths were ruled suicides. “We see failures happening a decent amount of time in these suicide cases: failures of observation, failures to recognize that somebody is suicidal … failure to get medication that folks are already prescribed but don’t have with them when they’re arrested,” Woollard said. “We’re seeing a lot of these issues that continue to be major problems with the mental health care that’s given in jail.” Inmates are at a particularly high risk of dying of suicide within the first 24 to 72 hours of getting arrested, said Atrium Health forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sherif Soliman. “In addition to the stress of being booked in jail and facing criminal charges, many are coping with untreated mental health symptoms, such as hallucinations or severe depression,” Soliman said. “Many are suffering the effects of drug withdrawal over these first few days, and in fact, some substance withdrawals, such as alcohol withdrawal, can be fatal.” Eleven counties reported that over 30% of their populations had self-reported mental illnesses upon intake, with Caldwell County reporting 80%. Mecklenburg is one of 47 North Carolina counties to issue a “Stepping Up Resolution” as part of a national initiative, run by several organizations including the American Psychiatric Association, to reduce the number of adults with mental illnesses in local jails. Per the Stepping Up website, people with serious mental illnesses are booked into county jails almost 2 million times a year. To reduce the amount of time people with mental illnesses spend in jail, Stepping Up counties collect data and run programs such as peer counseling, mental health screenings and crisis intervention training for police and correctional officers. CIT 40-hour training programs teach law enforcement and other first responders, behavioral health staff and advocates how to react to mental health crises. “What we see common with law enforcement, when you see a person on the street who’s going through a crisis or episode, people are telling him to ‘Get down, drop this, get up,’” McFadden said. “But then you have three or four people talking to this person at the same time. Are you really knowing what you’re doing?… We take training to say how to prevent the crisis [from] escalating.”
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden (center) smiles with two specially trained jail psychiatric unit guards.
Melissa Russell, a guard in the psych unit, stands by a column with an inspirational message she wrote in dry-erase marker.
In Mecklenburg, about 400 of over 1,300 officers are certified in CIT, Pearson said, with a goal of all guards completing CIT and behavioral health training. Pearson said by next year, the county will open a separate diversion building to treat people with mental illnesses who are booked for lowerlevel offenses such as loitering or trespassing. He gave examples of a “bag lady” who would not leave a store, or a homeless person camped out on church steps for weeks. Last year, Alamance County received $1.2 million in funding to open such a diversion program, which will be ready next year. “Some [Stepping Up programs] are making a difference with such things as putting peer support
PHOTO BY YEN DUONG
PHOTO BY YEN DUONG
inside the jail to help people, diversion and reentry support, more medical care and treatment,” said Susan Pollitt, an attorney with Disability Rights NC. “All of these things are necessary in North Carolina because unfortunately, we have a problem with people dying in our jails and our regulations and our funding is not adequate to ensure that people are safe when they come into our county jail.” North Carolina laws do not require jails to run standardized mental health screenings, report suicide attempts nor run suicide prevention programs. Pollitt said those rules are “outdated,” but the Department of Health and Human Services website has a draft of new regulations which
PHOTO BY YEN DUONG
include mandatory suicide prevention plans. But the new rules are stalled in the state’s sometimes Byzantine process for approving new administrative procedures. The rules have been opposed by the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, which wrote in March that a number of the changes “exceed the authority” of the Division of Health Service Regulation, part of DHHS. So the rules have been sent back to the legislature for consideration. Jail is a temporary place: McFadden said his team is looking for community resources to connect with people who are released and hope for eventual changes for the transition from jail to prison. Currently, the state assesses prisoners’ mental health at intake to the state prison system. “Mecklenburg can give recommendations, but the state doesn’t have to listen to them,” Pearson said. “[That] is difficult, because then obviously he’s back to either being treated or not being treated,” McFadden added. “We hope that one day … it could be a step program.” For people who are released back into the public, McFadden and Pearson hope that keeping up with mental health resources and community resources will reduce recidivism. “They’re here to get the help that we’re going to provide,” Russell said. “[We] give them the tools they need to go out there and succeed. We don’t want them to come back. We don’t need no repeat offenders.” This story originally appeared in North Carolina Health News, an independent, non-partisan, notfor-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.
THE SEEKER AN OMNIVORE’S REDEMPTION
Going plant-based for all the right reasons
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BY KATIE GRANT
IN COLLEGE, I gained the dreaded “Freshman 15” (meaning pounds), and that was enough to shame me into making my health a priority. I simply needed to suppress my inner T-rex, so pressing pause on meat-eating was an easy decision. But nature abhors a vacuum, and I now needed a lifestyle with a plant-based or plant-forward diet. Others pursue this diet out of compassion for animals, religious convictions or food costs, but for me it was all about the weight — at least to start. On a school trip to Amsterdam, however, I picked up some vegan literature and learned animals experience anxiety before slaughter. This sealed the deal. Time passed; T-rex slumbered. Now in my mid-thirties, a nutrition “check-up” was in order. I recently attended Benefits of a Plant Based Diet, a seminar by doctors Tracy Larson and Laura Pridemore held at Thrive, a health-andwellness center in SouthPark. Essentially, I wanted to find out how to incorporate more plant-based foods into my meals. After all, just because my mac and cheese is meatless doesn’t necessarily mean it’s that much healthier. T-Rex stirred. At Thrive, you enter a personal wellness mecca. A two-floor, spa-like setting offers personalized care through a combination of medical practices and personalized wellness services. This soothing place offers fitness and cooking classes, yoga and health education, just to name a few. After checking in on the first floor, I was directed upstairs. Here, I was greeted with a glass of fruitinfused water. Yes, replenishing with plain ol’ water is the ultimate hydrator for our organs, plus it flushes out toxins. So, here, let’s rack up a few bonus calorie reduction points for simply infusing flavor. But if I’m being honest, the rare treat of fruit-infused water is that it makes me feel sort of … fancy. Pridemore reviewed the benefits of a plantbased diet, to include improved digestion and reduced risks of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Higher energy is also a consideration. And fiber? It plays a key role for digestion, weight loss and cancer prevention. Natural fiber is found only in fruits, vegetables,
whole grains and legumes. The only downside, so far, is that cheese isn’t anywhere on this list. Sigh. But honestly, have you considered what your stomach would say if it knew words? Grumbling is its way of talking to you. A growling stomach can indicate intestinal blockage, or (dare I say) constipation due to low fiber. Moreover, various studies reveal a whopping 60% of our daily caloric intake comes from ultraprocessed foods that contain fat, sugar, salt, added colors, flavors, emulsifiers and additives. T-Rex tossed and turned. Those studies conclude that switching to whole foods can effectively reduce our sugar intake. It sounds easy enough, but what exactly is a whole food? They weren’t talking about shopping at the grocery store. Simply put, a whole food is a food that’s processed or refined as little as possible. For example, we should opt for the orange versus its sugary counterpart, orange juice. Sugar lights up the same part of the brain as cocaine, which is why we can easily drink a whole bottle of orange juice in one sitting instead of overindulging on the actual fruit itself. According to Harvard Health Publishing, “Plantbased or plant-forward eating patterns focus on foods primarily from plants. This includes not only fruits and vegetables, but nuts, seeds, oils, whole grains, legumes and beans, too. It doesn’t mean that you are vegetarian or vegan and never eat meat or dairy. Rather, you are proportionately choosing more of your foods from plant sources.” This is great news for cheese lovers like me who aren’t quite ready to go vegan and would rather tiptoe around it. “Proportionately.” T-Rex loves that word. In hindsight, my vegetarian journey should have begun by reading more health-focused literature instead of relying on animal cruelty brochures, vanity and my fear of T-rex. A more solid knowledge base about what to put in my body would have been helpful. Yes, Pridemore did influence me. In particular she noted it’s important to keep in mind that it’s “progress over perfection” that counts. Heel, T-Rex! Heel! INFO@QCNERVE.COM
SCANNER BY RYAN PITKIN
WALLED OFF A 29-year-old G4S security officer working at the CATS Transit Center (CTC) in Uptown is probably wishing they’d have their own jail cell built in to the center after one suspect was able to rough up the officer in the worst way even after being taken into custody. According to the report, the suspect was in the waiting area of the CTC when he pushed the security officer, sending the officer into the wall and damn near through it, doing $500 in damage. The officer then reported that after the suspect was in custody, he kicked the officer in the groin. BUTTERFACE Adding to the list of employees having rough days at work, a 31-year-old McDonald’s employee was also assaulted while working a shift recently. Police reported to a McDonald’s on University City Boulevard at 8 a.m. after a disgruntled customer allegedly threw a breakfast biscuit at the employee, striking her in the left eye. Here’s to hoping they were baked fresh and soft that morning.
last week, and ended up giving up on the crime altogether. Police responded to a damaged property call at a Circle K convenience store on University City Boulevard (a hot spot this week, apparently) after employees said a suspect grabbed four cases of beer and tried to run out with them. Before they could reach the door, the suspect dropped two of the cases on the ground, damaging them. That was enough to shame them into cutting their losses, as the report states that the suspect then put the other cases down and ran out of the store.
BRUSH UP We’ll be forming a jaded employee support group after this month, as yet another woman reported being assaulted at her job on a recent morning. Police reported to a Family Dollar on North Sharon Amity Road just before 10:30 a.m. one recent day after a 29-year-old employee told police that a customer was going to purchase a hairbrush, but ended up throwing it at the THROUGH THE ROOF Staff members at a employee instead, striking her in her left arm. development company in south Charlotte were Thankfully, the woman was not injured. flummoxed when they received a package that they hadn’t asked for at their offices recently. A BUCK A BULLET Officers filed a found property According to a report, a package containing $2,000 after a retail employee doing inventory found worth of cocaine was delivered to Marsh Properties some merchandise that didn’t belong to the store. LLC on Park Road, and instead of letting this be According to the report, the employee was cleaning the beginning of a Breaking Bad-esque story, they the shelves at a Family Dollar on Bradford Drive simply turned it into the police. when she came across a pile of .22-caliber bullets that someone had stashed behind some other TWILIGHT RETURNS A 37-year-old northeast merchandise. The report does not state how many Charlotte woman (who lives near University City bullets there were, but valued them at $6. Boulevard, of course) filed a police report recently after another woman allegedly bit her. The victim BEER ME A shoplifting suspect in north Charlotte told police the reason for the assault: She and the bit off more than they could chew — or drink — suspect have the same boyfriend.
GOFUCKME We cross so many reports of folks getting creative with fraud around Charlotte that it wouldn’t be difficult to create a sister column to The Scanner called The Scammer (light bulb!), but one recent report was a first. A 46-year-old east Charlotte woman filed a report recently stating that someone was using her son’s personal information — not to open a DirecTV account or take out a credit card, but to start a GoFundMe and raise money. The question then becomes: Does he get any of the money? WINO TOSS Police responded to an assault call at a 7-Eleven on … holy shit it’s University City Boulevard! What the hell is going on … after a customer in the store was attacked by a suspect who was chucking 4 Lokos like ninja stars. A 43-year-old man told police he was in the store when a suspect he had never seen before suddenly threw a $15 bottle of wine at him, breaking it on the floor. When that failed the man also threw cans of 4 Loko at the victim before fleeing the scene. All Scanner entries are pulled from CMPD reports. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
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Join Queen City Nerve in discussions about local news topics over cocktails with featured guests on the Queen City Podcast Network.
www.queencitypodcastnetwork.com/noozehounds
A WITNESS TO GENOCIDE Three Bone Theatre takes up local Holocaust survivor’s story
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A
PHOTO COURTESY OF THREE BONE THEATRE
BY PERRY TANNENBAUM
T AGE 97, Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz can look back on a life well-lived — and a life well-told. Neither outcome seemed possible on May 7, 1942, when Cernyak-Spatz and her mom responded to an invitation from the Nazi invaders who had occupied Czechoslovakia. It was an invitation that Jews were not allowed to refuse. They assembled in a large public square, where they were marched across the city of Prague in broad daylight, herded to a freight station, loaded onto trains and transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camps in the fortress town Terezín, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. At that point, the family had already in beaten the odds by simply surviving the journey. Their odds grew slimmer on January 31, 1943, when CernyakSpatz was transported from Theresienstadt, the “showplace” camp built to deceive International Red Cross inspectors, to Birkenau, the belly of the beast in Adolph Hitler’s genocide machine. Yet Cernyak-Spatz did survive. She survived a transfer deeper into the belly, to Auschwitz, and an attack of typhus fever brought on by the toxic living conditions there. Even after the Russians began “liberating” Eastern Europe, Cernyak-Spatz then survived a grueling death march at gunpoint. Since arriving in the U.S. nearly three quarters of a century ago, Cernyak-Spatz has told her story — well and often. New generations have heard it at Jewish Sunday schools and at UNC Charlotte, where she continues to work as a professor emerita in German literature. In classrooms, in lecture halls and in synagogues across America and Europe — including Germany — she has opened fresh eyes to Nazi atrocities. In books she has authored about her life, the Holocaust and Theresienstadt, Cernyak-Spatz has chronicled the unthinkable horrors she survived — horrors that millions of other Jews did not survive. And the story continues to be told. At the upcoming Charlotte Jewish Film Festival, filmmaker Ron Small screen his documentary biopic, Surviving Birkenau, on Oct. 26. And next week at Spirit Square, a project initiated by Cernyak-Spatz’s daughter, Jackie Fishman, and notables of the Queen City’s theatre community comes to fruition. Charles LaBorde’s adaptation
of Cernyak-Spatz’s memoirs, Protective Custody: Prisoner 34042, opens on Nov. 1 in a Three Bone Theatre production directed by Dennis Delamar. The idea for presenting a one-woman show focused on his longtime friend Susan’s life had been kicking around in Delamar’s mind since 2005, when he directed the Charlotte premiere of Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, an adaptation of cross-dresser Charlotte von Mahlsdorf’s autobiography. “That survivor’s story carried us through the Holocaust and also the fall of the Berlin Wall and made me start visualizing something similarly possible about another person’s unique Holocaust story,” Delamar said. “Someone I actually knew and cared for very much — Susan! Since then, I thought the idea was a really good one, but it stayed in the back of mind, dormant. Cut to 11 years later.” Pieces began falling into place when Fishman, education coordinator at the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queen’s University brought Delamar and LaBorde to campus for a reading of Address Unknown in April 2017, reviving one of multiple Holocaust plays LaBorde had already written. Almost inevitably, Delamar broached his long-gestating idea with Fishman during rehearsals. “Jackie was immediately ecstatic over the idea,” he recalls, “as if I had said some magic words. ‘Let’s do it! Mom has already written her story down, the book she published in 2005. Have you read it? I’ll get you a copy.’ At that moment, Jackie became a key driving force behind this play getting done, a mission she has continued to energize as a daughter’s gift to her mother.” Though Fishman had been one of his most valued teachers back when LaBorde was principal of Northwest School of the Arts, he didn’t see a natural transition of Protective Custody from page to stage. “Too many people, too complex a story to pare down enough for an audience to follow,” LaBorde recalled of his first impression of the idea. He was prepared to walk away until he came face-to-face with Fishman’s enthusiasm for the project. That’s what inspired him to give the book a second look. With Three Bone Theatre aboard — and Cernyak-Spatz greenlighting the project —
A crematorium at Theresienstadt, restored by the Luski family, well-known to Charlotte’s Jewish and arts communities. ‘PROTECTIVE CUSTODY: PRISONER 34042’ Nov. 1-3, Nov 7-9, 8 p.m.; $22-28; Duke Energy Theater, 345 N. College St.; threebonetheatre.com
PHOTO BY PERRY TANNENBAUM
“WE ATE ANYTHING THAT WOULDN’T EAT US. THERE WAS NO TIME TO DWELL ON FAITH OR GOD.”
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Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz
Delamar and LaBorde returned to Queens University, where the Greenspon Center hosted an even more exciting event last December than they had the year before. Cernyak-Spatz was seated in the front row of a packed house at a readingstage performance of a new LaBorde play, doubly honored at the occasion. Cernyak-Spatz did not sit idly by as the latest incarnation of her life story took shape. She and her daughters, Jackie and Wendy Fishman, have been intensively involved in the process, checking facts, suggesting enhancements, correcting pronunciations and fine-tuning the voice of the Susan we will see onstage. “My favorite bit of research,” LaBorde reveals, “was to ask Wendy and Jackie if their mother would say the line I had written early in the play, ‘Somebody fucked up.’ Their reaction was to look at each other and then say simultaneously, ‘Oh, yeah.’” My own research for this momentous Three Bone premiere took me to Prague last month — and from there to the fortress site of the Theresienstadt camps, the town of Terezín, and
the Museum of the Ghetto. In Prague, my wife Sue and I stood in one of the squares where CernyakSpatz may have been marched to the transport awaiting her at the freight yards. Our guide told us that we were standing on pavement made from the shattered gravestones of a demolished Jewish cemetery. At Theresienstadt we saw the barracks where Jews were warehoused in hall-length beds three and four levels high, no toilets provided. We saw a washroom built to hoodwink the Red Cross, lined with sinks where no water has ever flowed. We saw cemeteries near Theresienstadt and Terzín larger than football fields — with marked, unmarked and mass graves. We were guided to the Secret Synagogue where I read the most heartbreaking plea to God that I’ve ever seen in a house of worship, written in Hebrew: “PLEASE RETURN FROM YOUR WRATH.” And outside Terezín, adjoining one of the burial grounds, we saw the crematoriums, restored by the Luski Family, a name familiar throughout Charlotte’s Jewish community. Maybe the most
chilling and revelatory things I saw were the records displayed at the Ghetto Museum of the transports, punctiliously kept by the Nazis: dates, points of origin and numbers of Protective Custody prisoners brought into Theresienstadt via the transports. Of the hundreds — sometimes thousands — who were loaded into the cattle cars, I never saw that even 100 survived any of the horrific transports that followed. More than once, the number was zero. Clearly, Cernyak-Spatz bucked prodigious odds to arrive at Theresienstadt, to survive her journey to Birkenau and finally reach Ravensbrueck, the destination of her January 1945 death march. Susan does use the word “miracle” once in LaBorde’s script to account for her eluding “the gas.” Benefiting from the guidance of the Fishmans — and the sound of the real Cernyak-Spatz’s voice (yes, there’s a Prisoner 34042 audiobook!) — Leslie Giles takes on the daunting challenge of being Susan at Duke Energy Theater, assisted by Paula Baldwin as The Dresser. “Oh my gosh, daunting doesn’t even begin to
describe how it feels to take on this very special project about this incredible person,” said Giles. “The amount of lines would be enough to scare some actors away, and then to top it off with the very real and gritty details makes it overwhelming at times. That said, it is absolutely worth it, probably the most important piece of work I’ve ever performed in my entire career. It is one thing to read about these events in a book. It is another thing to watch the story coming alive in front of you.” Reflecting on the wonder of her survival, Cernyak-Spatz scoffs at the notion that she had any special wisdom. “Our entire day was taken up with thinking of survival,” she declares. “We had to be alert like wild animals. Wild animals don’t do much thinking. They survive. We ate anything that wouldn’t eat us. There was no time to dwell on faith or God; you had to give up your expectations of a normal universe. Perhaps my naivete allowed me to take great risks that paid off.” If it weren’t for the war, Cernyak-Spatz said she would have likely become a dancer or an actress. Indeed, she has occasionally performed onstage here in the Q.C., most recently when I called her one of the “islands in a stream of ineptitude” in my review of Theatre Charlotte’s production of A Little Night Music in 2006. No wonder she treasures the gift of a new drama dedicated to her in her twilight years. There’s also a twinkle of artistry in the title of her memoirs. The Nazis didn’t simply record your prisoner number in a ledger or stitch it into your prison clothes — it was tattooed into your forearm. They fancied themselves the master race, so they could house Jews and brand Jews and liquidate Jews like cattle. The 34042 that endures in CernyakSpatz’s title does not signify their triumph. “The title serves my purpose of explaining the steps and the de-humanization of a group of human beings,” Cernyak-Spatz said. “When one is ultimately reduced to no more than a number, the extrapolation is that there’s no worth to this life and it can be easily disposed of. I have outlived the Third Reich, triumphed over them, with a successful and productive life — raised a Jewish family and have told my story all over the world. Anyone who sees the tattooed number on my arm becomes a witness to this history.” INFO@QCNERVE.COM
THE MAN BEHIND THE MASKS
Mikey Sevier puts a face to all things dark and horrible
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T
Masks by mikey Sevier.
BY PAT MORAN
HE FACES ARE weird and twisted. A malevolent mummy sneers through a veil of rotting flesh. A sickly green skull’s glowing eyes burn with the fires of hell. A grimacing ghoul named Mikey Sevier sports makeup that resembles an undead roadie for Kiss. Sevier is the creepy alter ego of Davidson-based artist, performer and horror aficionado Michael Pergola, and this murderer’s row of frightful faces comprise his Spookshow Monster Masks, a product line of horrible handcrafted creations that collectors snap up for $175 or more a pop. Mikey Sevier (pronounced “severe”) is a cross between a Transylvanian nobleman and a Borscht Belt comic, a character the 41-year-old Pergola launched more than a decade ago as part of a cabaret performance. Like a virus transmitted by a zombie’s bite, Sevier’s baleful influence has spread beyond his creator’s control. He’s a horror movie host on Pergola’s YouTube channel, Be a Monster 24/7, offering monster make-up tips, movie reviews, and eerie music videos. He’s also the star of a series of gory yet goofy Instagram posts that feature monster Mikey butting into classic, and not-so-classic, horror movie clips and posters like a frightful Forrest Gump. Pergola’s masks, performances and posts are valentines to visceral horror, tapping into our cultural monster-loving DNA that found fruition in the 1960s horror boom. It was a world where classic creature features were screened on late-night TV, curated by horror movie hosts like L.A.’s Vampira, Chicago’s Svengoolie and Philadelphia’s Zacherle; when television sitcoms featured creepy clans like The Munsters and The Addams Family, and kids could
thumb through macabre magazines like J. Forest Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland or scare their friends with a glow-in-the-dark wolf man assembled from an Aurora monster model kit. The lure of monster culture is so powerful it’s lived on in countless iterations ever since, a hall of mirrors where the black and white nightmares of the 1930s are reflected as the lurid Technicolor scream fests of the 1960s, the winking gore hound nostalgia of the 1980s and contemporary creepouts like American Horror Story and Stranger Things. And Mikey Sevier loves them all. Queen City Nerve: Which came first for you, art or horror? Michael Pergola: Monsters have always figured into my art. I grew up in northern New Jersey in a town called Ringwood, which was really interesting. It’s a much wooded area at the top of the Appalachian Mountains. It has a lot of ghosts, witch stories, UFO sightings and things like that. I was interested in Halloween and the classic monsters when I was very little. I went through my goth phase in second grade when I started wearing vampire makeup to school — delicately applied red eyeliner. When the teacher said I had to go see the nurse, I tried not to say in front of the other kids that I was wearing makeup. When I was 11, Freddy Krueger was really big and I got into [horror movie magazine] Fangoria. Reading Fangoria I learned about Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. I was like, “Wow, this is where it’s really at!” It seemed a lot cooler than what was going on in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when the
slasher and body horror [genres] were dying down. This was something that was classic and yet it was infused with a psychedelic life from that mid-20th century drawing style. To me as a teenager, it was inspiring to see [monsters] represented in what was even then a cool retro way. When I was a teenager I started in rock ‘n’ roll bands and the first song that I ever recorded and released on cassette was called “Dracula Died for Your Sins.” It was a mash-up of noise music and ’70s soul. It was obvious to me at the time that my childhood obsessions were figuring into my adolescence. They carried through until now. It’s always been about monsters for me, even when I was trying to be serious and doing punk rock in my twenties. That led to a performance art thing. About 10 years ago, I [joined] a couple of cabaret-type outfits for burlesque places in New York City. That’s where the character of Mikey Sevier first came to fruition. I wanted to sing in front of people and do my routines, but I couldn’t think of a character. Suddenly I realized: Do what you know. I ended up being this down-on-his-luck horror host, a very glamorous yet totally silly character. From that cabaret act, I started doing [the character] on the internet because it was so much easier. Instead of having to put on makeup and get all this stuff together and go from Jersey into the city, I could just drop a video on YouTube or Instagram. I was doing Instagram and people were interacting with the character. They’d ask me a question and I’d provide some funny quip that would relate back to a little piece of history that I didn’t know was there in the formation of the character.
What’s Mikey Sevier’s backstory? Mikey Sevier is every kind of monster put together with a little bit of Gene Simmons, Elvira and Groucho Marx. He was a rich man who got bitten by Dracula. He was a vampire for years and eventually was attacked by a wolf man in the middle of the night. Later he bumped into Dr. Frankenstein, and Frankenstein put him back together after he was torn apart by angry villagers. He eventually moved to the U.S. and started doing vaudeville. He got into silent pictures [and] then went into talkies. He fell down on his luck and then came back in the early ’60s through a horror hosting gig. [Throughout] the ’70s he got into psychedelia. He eventually lost the family castle and had to start doing shows from the family crypt. He was relegated to public access TV before finally finding his way to Instagram and YouTube, so he had a little bit of a rebirth. You’re also a horror movie host. I had to rediscover horror hosts. When I was a kid in the New York area they had Chiller Theatre [but] by the time I was able to stay up late enough, it was off the air. The only horror host that I remember was Elvira when she would do her Halloween specials on MTV. Even when I started doing the Mikey Sevier horror host as a cabaret act 10 years ago, I didn’t realize how big horror hosts were across the U.S. There were millions of them! There are still tons of horror hosts today who are doing it on public access. And I thought I was doing something that was totally original!
halloween guide HALLOWEEN GUIDE 2019
MANDYLAND CREEP SHOW
What: Pay discounted admission with a costume for a night of music and monsters hosted by none other than Charlotte’s “Evil Clown” himself, Martin Barry. More: $10-$15; Oct. 26, 9 p.m.; The Rabbit Hole, 1801 Commonwealth Ave., tinyurl.com/MandylandCreep
A full week of All Hallows’ Eve happenings BY ELIZABETH MCGUIRE
CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY: ‘NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS ‘
What: Tim Burton’s classic animated feature The Nightmare Before Christmas is still beloved by a devoted fan base 27 years post-release. Charlotte Symphony provides a live soundtrack to this special screening. More: $19 and up; Oct. 24, 7:30pm; Belk Theater; 130 N Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org HORROR MOVIE TRIVIA
What: Did you know that Dana Plato, who went on to play Kimberly Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes, was originally pegged to play Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist? If you did, you should go out to the Tin Roof’s Green Room on Thursday. More: Free; Oct. 24, 6:30 p.m.; Tin Roof, 210 E Trade St., Suite 286; tinroofcharlotte.com LANTERNS & LEGENDS
What: Ever wondered what lost souls are roaming the streets of Fort Mill, South Carolina? The town hosts its third annual walking tour, delivering a spooky combination of history and legend. More: $15; Runs through Oct. 26, times vary; 107 Clebourne St., Fort Mill; fmhm.org/events/
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ANNUAL UPSCALE HALLOWEEN PARTY
What: Studio Movie Grill will take a break from cinema to host the annual Upscale Halloween Costume Party. More: $10; Oct. 25, 10 p.m.; Studio Movie Grill, 210 E. Trade St., Suite D-290; tinyurl.com/UpscaleHalloween SPOOKY TALES IN THE CANDLELIGHT HOUSE TOUR
DARK:
What: Hosts offer spine-chilling tours through Latta’s historic home and kitchen house; followed by hot cider and cookies fireside. Throughout the tour, guests will listen to first hand accounts of ghostly tales from present and past staff,
volunteers, and visitors. More: $20; Oct. 25-Oct. 26, times vary; Historic Latta Plantation, 5225 Sample Road; tinyurl.com/SpookyLatta
ADULT GAME NIGHT COSTUME PARTY
What: This party has more than 50 games, and with more than 300 “approachable professionals,” you’ll be playing all night. The only rule: Wear a costume. More: $5-30; Oct. 26th, 8 p.m.-1 a.m.; Morehead Tavern, 300 E. Morehead St.; tinyurl.com/AdultGameNight
TERRORS OF THE PAST: ESCAPE FROM DEVIL CHARLIE
What: This live experience will task you with solving the murder of 18th-century Mecklenburg County resident Polly Alexander. More: $30-45; Oct. 25, 6-10 p.m.; Charlotte Museum of History, 3500 Shamrock Drive; charlottemuseum.org MEGA HALLOWEEN LATIN PARTY
What: Come for the culture, stay to compete for $1,000 worth of cash prizes. More: $5-10; Oct. 25, 10 p.m.; La Revolucion, 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd.; tinyurl.com/LatinHalloween SCHIELE-O-WEEN
What: The Schiele Museum of Natural History agrees to open their doors after hours for an adults-only night of partying and Halloween fun. More: $5-$7; Oct. 25, 7-9 p.m.; 1500 E. Garrison Blvd., Gastonia; schielemuseum.org HALLOWEEN KNIGHTS
DAZE
AND
SPOOKY
What: Kids get in free and are allowed to trickor-treat at all the different Renn Fest vendors. A full day of regular festival entertainment is complemented by the “Knights of the Living Dead” a zombie jousting challenge. More: Kids free, adults $25; Oct. 26, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Renaissance Festival, 16445 Poplar Tent Road; carolina.renfestinfo.com BLAIR WITCH PROJECT: A CAROLINA THEATRE POP-UP
What: On the 20th anniversary of the found-
HOWLOWEEN
What: Start looking for your best friend’s perfect costume because Brewers is having their first annual dog costume contest. More: Free; Oct. 26th, 3-5 p.m.; llustration by Rick Guedes Brewers at 4001 Yancey, 4001-A Yancey Road; tinyurl.com/YanceyHowl
BEETLEJUICE HALLOWEEN BASH
What: The fourth annual NoDa Company Store will take on a Beetlejuice theme. It’s showtime. More: Free; Oct. 26, 8 p.m.-12 a.m.; NoDa Company Store, 3221 Yadkin Ave.; tinyurl.com/CoStoreHalloween
JUNGLE BOOGIE HALLOWEEN PARTY
What: Seeking to make a difference this Halloween? Head to Pour Taproom for a jungle party where a portion of your proceeds will go to the Rainforest Alliance. More: Free; Oct. 26th, 7 p.m.-12 a.m.; Pour Taproom, 1212 Central Ave.; tinyurl.com/PourTheRainforest
footage horror mystery The Blair Witch Project, join in on this outdoor screening of the flick, but stay out of the woods. More: Free; Oct. 26, 7:30-10 p.m.; Blue Blaze Brewing Co., 528 S. Turner Ave.; tinyurl.com/BlairWitchPopUp
What: Celebrate the holiday by spending an afternoon and evening hitting the bars in Uptown. More: $25; Oct. 26th, 3-11 p.m.; EpiCentre, 210 E. Trade St.; tinyurl.com/UptownBarCrawl
ABARI MONSTER BASH
FALL CRAWL & COSTUME PARADE
What: Put on your favorite costume to play Abari’s spookiest video games for free while winning prizes at this annual gamer gathering. More: Free; Oct. 26, 5 p.m.; Abari Game Bar, 1721 N. Davidson St.; tinyurl.com/AbariMonsterBash
HALLOWEEN BAR CRAWL
What: This family-friendly event is a full day of festivities, candy, craft beer and costumes in Plaza Midwood. More: Free; Oct. 26th, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Midwood Park, 2100 Wilhelmina Ave.; tinyurl.com/FallCrawlMidwood
Then somebody in the States would repaint that and have it look a little bit different by changing the colors around. I love it when that happens. Who is buying your masks? Is your demo all across the board or it mostly older white guys? It’s a lot of older white guys (laughs). The people I sell to are mostly high-end collectors who are totally cool with paying $200 for an expertly made monster mask that’s going to look good in a display next to items that cost thousands of dollars. I find that a lot of kids are really intro Mikey the character and they think the masks are cool. To them it’s brand new. A bright green skull with red eyes, we’ve all seen that in a die-cut Halloween decoration, but to a kid that’s a brand new thing. When they go to a Halloween store [they’re not into] all this ultrarealistic or otherwise super-cutesy Halloween stuff. But when they see something that has more of the retro-feel, they’re like, “Wow!” And I love that. What do you hope people get from you art? I want people to get a fun, creepy, maybe nostalgic Halloween vibe. I want people to be able to feel that excitement that I got on Halloween as a kid. That’s really inspiring in my line of work. I get a real kick
out of it when people get in touch with me and say, “I look forward to your Instagram posts every day. I know you’re going to inspire me or make me feel like I’m six years old today.” I get a lot of that. I can’t tell you how gratifying that is. Furthermore I love people to have a blast and appreciate horror. I think horror is a noble genre. It teaches you a lot about life. You can learn a lot from horror movies and fairy tales. And monster masks are just cool. They look good in your house. Everybody should have cool monster masks on display in their house because it’s art that’s fun. What is the overarching lesson from horror movies, if you had to distill it down to a tweet? I don’t think they’re about good vs. evil. I think it’s an introspective thing. It’s about recognizing that which scares you and making it your buddy. It’s about confronting your own mortality through the art. That’s probably why little kids like it. That’s why guys who are my age and older like it. If you can make that cool, palatable, sexy or glamorous or psychedelic, that’s fun! Happy Halloween!
VOICE OVER
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What are your favorite monsters? It’s Glenn Strange’s Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi in Return of the Vampire. Anything where they’re wearing more makeup and it’s especially caked on, or it looks like they’re wearing lipstick, those are my monsters. When did you come to the Charlotte area? I moved to Davidson three years ago. I’d already been doing the Mikey Sevier character for about three years. I was painting original prints and selling those. I’m always looking for a way to monetize the character. I love doing videos but I couldn’t turn out [content] on YouTube as quickly as I wanted to in a way that would pick up steam. The [videos] all needed to be of a certain quality. The idea was that they all were fake TV shows so they had to look right. It was difficult to get them out that fast. But I could shoot out short Instagram posts every day, because I had been honing my digital manipulation skills with Photoshop, After Effects and digital music production for the 10 years before I started Mikey Sevier. So by the time I started doing Instagram I could start a video, spend two hours on it, and get it out by five o’clock and be a horror star.
CASTING What sparked your interest in making monster masks? I moved to the masks about two years ago because of people that I’d been following on Instagram and who had been following me. I found a couple of mask-makers. They were doing it in an old-school style that I found very exciting, because I started becoming obsessed with the old Ben Cooper masks — the plastic ones with the strap. I really didn’t like them as a kid because I wanted to be super realistic as I honed my makeup skills. But as I got older, the artificiality of that art and those designs really turned me on. Then I thought I could make these masks. So I bought some clay, some plaster and rubber and I just started doing it. To my surprise it turned out well and people wanted to buy them. A lot of the stuff is based on off-model brands. There are off-model toys which were not exactly perfect. You get a Yogi Bear [toy] but the colors are wrong or the eyes are a little too far apart. There’s a lot of art like that happening in the ’50s. They would rip off one illustration by one guy who did it for a magazine. Then these Japanese guys would repaint it differently.
MIX SOUND DESIGN MUSIC WHISKEY
GROUNDCREWSTUDIOS.COM
PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM
halloween guide BOO BASH 2019
More: Free; Oct. 26, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; The Olde THE NIGHTMARE ON COLLEGE STREET Mecklenburg Brewery, 4150 Yancey Road; What: Six establishments are on the route for tinyurl.com/OMBLoSo another Halloween bar crawl beginning at Lucky’s Bar and Arcade. HAUNTED PINHOUSE PARTY More: $10-$25; Oct. 31, 6 p.m.; Lucky’s Bar and What: A promising event for anyone who’s ever Arcade, 300 N. College St., #104; wondered what “Haunted Bowling” was like. t i n y u r l . c o m / More: Free; Oct. 26, 7 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; Pinhouse, CollegeStreetNightmare 2306 Central Ave.; tinyurl.com/HauntedPinhouse
What: Promoted as “The best costume contest in Charlotte,” Boo Bash is a night of cash prizes and music from Out of the Blue. More: $10; Oct. 26, 7 p.m.; Coyote Joe’s, 4621 Wilkinson Blvd.; coyote-joes.com CASSETTE REWIND’S HALLOWEEN BASH
What: Experience the ‘80s and ‘90s in one night of entertainment with Cassette Rewind and Gump Fiction. More: $12-$15; Oct. 26, 7:30-11:30 p.m.; Amos’ Southend, 1423 S. Tryon St., amossouthend.com
SHIPWRECKED HALLOWEEN BALL
SOULS DIVIDED
What: A night of mystery and music includes body painting, aerialists, art giveaways and more. More: $10.50-$25; Oct. 26, 9 p.m.; QC Social Lounge, 300 N. College St., Suite 105; soulsdivided.splashthat.com
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GRAVE DIGGER’S BALL 2019
AYRSLEY RETRO HORROR SERIES
What: Enjoy a blend of comedy and horror while watching 1985’s cult classics The Return of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead. More: $5; Oct. 25-Oct. 31; Times vary; Ayrsley Grand Cinemas 14, 9110 Kings Parade Blvd.; ayrsleycinemas.com
What: The one and only Yacht Rock Revue will headline Q.C.’s saltiest Halloween bash. More: $20; Oct. 27, 4 p.m.-12 a.m.; Moo & Brew, 1300 Central Ave.; tinyurl.com/ ShipwreckedHalloween HALLOWEEN VHS MIXTAPES
What: Turn back the clock for a What: Compete for $10,000 in prizes and dance to showing of the 1988 horror feature Diplo at a Charlotte Halloween staple. Paperhouse followed by a More: $20-$1,500; Oct. 26, 6 p.m.-11:30 p.m.; compilation of spooky videos 300 N. Brevard St.; kiss951.com ranging from fun music videos to horror highlights. MONSTER MASH More: Free; Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m.; What: A free day of family fun at Rea Farms ends Social Club, 2131 Central Ave.; skylarksocialclub.com VisArt Video, 3104 Eastway Drive; tinyurl.com/ with an outdoor showing of Hotel Transylvania. VHSCultMovieMixtape More: Free; Oct. 26, 3:30-7 p.m.; Rea Farms, 9800 SEANCE OF THE IDIOT SISTERS block of Sandy Rock Place; What: Inspired by the October classic Hocus Pocus, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW tinyurl.com/ReaMonsterMash the acrobatic artists of AerialCLT present an original What: The “That Type” Rocky Horror Charlotte performance. cast brings to life the eccentricity of “Transexual MILESTONE HALLOWEEN FIASCO More: $25; Oct. 26-27, 6-7:30 p.m.; Aerial CLT, Transylvania.” What: Bands play cover sets as their favorite 801 N. Tryon St.; aerialclt.com More: $20; Oct. 30, 8-11p.m.; Rí Rá, 208 N. Tryon performers for another annual bash at The St.; tinyurl.com/RockyHorrorRiRa Milestone Club. A VERY MOVE HALLOWEEN More: $8; Oct. 26, 8 p.m.-12 a.m.; The Milestone; What: Costumes welcome as Corduroy Mavericks VHS POTLUCK - HALLOWEEN HORROR 3400 Tuckaseegee Road; themilestone.club EDITION and others take the stage at MOVE #46. What: A chance to dust off your horror VHS tapes More: $8; Oct. 26, 10 p.m.; Crown Station, HALLOWEEN HAVOC and place them in the running as the crowd chooses 3629 N. Davidson St.; crownstationpub.com What: Skylark Social Club invites ANTiSEEN, Green two movies for a double feature. Fiend, No Anger Control and Lil’ Skritt to an evening OMB & LOSO HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION More: Free; Oct. 30, 7:30 p.m.; VisArt Video, 3104 What: Costume contest categories include men, Eastway Drive; tinyurl.com/VHSPotluck of Halloween mayhem. More: $15; Oct. 26, 8:30 p.m.-Midnight; Skylark women, most original and funniest.
ROSEMONT MANOR HAUNT 2019
What: Every year two locals from Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood hand-build a series of frightening attractions for Halloween night. More: Free; Oct. 31, 6:3010:30 p.m.; East 5th Street between Ridgeway and Osborne avenues; tinyurl.com/RosemontHaunt INSIDIOUS HALLOWEEN PARTY
What: Named for the horrifying 2010 thriller, this party is not only free but giving away cash prizes. More: Free; Oct. 31, 10 p.m.; La Revolución, 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd.; tinyurl.com/InsidiousCostumes PETRA’S ANNUAL HALLOWEEN BASH
What: Experience the music of Hectorina and Up/ Dn Ensemble at Petra’s, with a best costume prize of $100. More: $5; Oct. 31, 8 p.m.; Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave.; petrasbar.com ANTAGONIST HALLOWEEN PARTY
What: Come dressed as your favorite antagonist from any movie and enjoy themed beer cocktails, music and more. Best costume wins $50. More: Free; Oct. 31, 6-11 p.m.; Protagonist, 3123 N. Davidson St.; tinyurl.com/AntagonistHalloween
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23RD
ON THE TABLE CLT
What: People have been coming together over food since the first Thanksgiving. That didn’t end well in the long run, but we’re hoping for better results this time. On The Table is a community-wide civic engagement initiative consisting of mealtime dialogues in different locations while discussing new ways of thinking and connecting to resources and opportunities. More: Free; 10 a.m.: dupp&swat, 1824 Statesville Ave.; Noon: Advent Coworking, 933 Louise Ave.; onthetableclt.org
THURSDAY, OCT. 24TH
37TH ANNUAL LIGHT FACTORY ART AUCTION OPENING RECEPTION
What: In its nearly 50-year history, The Light Factory has been on its death bed multiple times, but arts advocates have stepped up to keep this gem of the creative scene alive. TLF’s biggest fundraiser every year is its silent and live art auctions, and though this year’s event doesn’t start until Nov. 2, the opening reception is a chance to preview the 74 pieces for sale. More: Free; 6:30-8:30 p.m.; The Light Factory, 1817 Central Ave.; lightfactory.org
FRIDAY, OCT. 25TH
LIFELINE
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OCT. 23RD - OCT. 29TH
NERDY NIGHT OUT
What: With years of professional comedy experience and several degrees in English and theater, it is unclear how much Matthew Starr can credibly tell us about science. That hasn’t stopped him from launching his “part science” stand-up tour, Dark Matter. Whether you’re a scientist or just wanting to express your inner nerd, you’ll laugh at “how little we understand”. More: $10; 8 p.m.; Knight Gallery, 345 N. College St.; blumenthalarts.org
SATURDAY, OCT. 26TH
JMICHAEL PEEPLES
What: Raised on a diet of classic R&B and hard-bop guitar, Jmichael Peeples blends smooth yearning vocals that conjure the spirit of Sam Cooke with coiling cascading licks that are virtuosic without being showy. His single “Holding On,” is an unlikely confluence of gospel, blues, Americana and heartbreak that works like a charm. More: $15; 7:30 p.m.; Evening Muse, 3227 N. Davidson St.; eveningmuse.com
SUNDAY, OCT. 27TH
ANGELA YEE’S ‘LIP SERVICE’
What: Men may never get to read women’s minds like Mel Gibson in that awful rom-com, but at least The Breakfast Club cohost Angela Yee has dedicated an entire podcast to giving women a platform to express themselves and give men a glimpse at how the female mind works. The live experience takes it up a notch with audience participation and special guests. More: $55.50 and up; 6 p.m.; The Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St.; fillmorenc.com
MONDAY, OCT. 28TH WHITE REAPER, NUDE PARTY
What: In the tradition of The White Stripes, The Black Keys, White Denim, The Black Angels and all the rest, any garage rock band with black or white at the beginning of their name is a safe bet to put on a great show, especially when they’re paired with Boone-based frat rockers The Nude Party. More: $15-18; 6:30 p.m.; Amos’ Southend, 1423 S. Tryon St.; amossouthend.com
TUESDAY, OCT. 29TH ‘LES MISÉRABLES’
What: Victor Hugo’s sprawling novel spawned a musical theatre classic, but when Les Mis debuted in London 34 years ago it earned crap reviews. No matter, audiences have flocked to the tuneful saga for catchy showstoppers like “One Day More” and a plot that celebrates manning the barricades and indomitable human spirit. More: $46.50-86.50; Oct. 29 – Nov. 3; Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd.; boplex.com
Social Calendar a little light? Check out
QCNERVE’S LIFELINE
for cool events happening in the queen city!
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 30TH
CAVETOWN
What: We originally had Cavetown penciled in for the Halloween Guide because some smartass promoted him as performing under the name Spookyghostboy. Further research proved someone was just picking on the pale 20-year-old UK singer/ songwriter, whose songs about love, loss and existentialism — all recorded in his bedroom — are more than skin deep. More: $29; 6:30 p.m.; The Underground, 820 Hamilton St.; fillmorenc.com
THURSDAY, OCT. 31ST
WARRIOR FOR JUSTICE: LAWANA MAYFIELD
What: The first openly gay member of Charlotte City Council has never been known for holding her tongue, but now that she’s out of the running for an at-large seat after representing District 3 for eight years, she really has no reason to hold back. Mayfield will discuss Charlotte arts and the forces that guide the future of culture in our city. More: Free; 5:30 p.m.; SouthEnd ARTS, 1507 Camden Road; southendarts.net
FRIDAY, NOV. 1ST
LIFELINE
Pg. 17 Jan. 2 - Jan. 15, 2019 - QCNERVE.COM
OCT. 3OTH - NOV. 5TH
DIA DE LOS CASI MUERTOS
What: During this Day of the Almost Dead celebration, Mexican-American artist Julio Gonzalez explores the cultural differences between American and Mexican experiences around death and aging by engagng people of diverse ages and backgrounds through sculpture, video and photography. More: Free; Nov. 1-2, times vary; Camp North End, 1824 Statesville Ave.; wonderwhatif.com/dia-de
SATURDAY, NOV. 2ND
FIDDLE & FIRE
What: Described as the Latta’s first adults-only field trip, a candlelit tour of the historic plantation will be followed by live music, marshmallow roastings and whiskey tasting. Interactive aspects of the event include hearth cooking, woodworking, candlemaking and cider pressing. More: $20; 6-8 p.m.; Latta Plantation, 5225 Sample Road, Huntersville; lattaplantation.org
SUNDAY, NOV. 3RD
JIDENNA
What: Signed to Janelle Monae’s label Wondaland, Nigerian-American rapper Jidenna has cited Nat King Cole and OutKast as inspirations, but Monae’s flair for high concept experimentation seems to have influenced his swank blend of R&B and rap. On his new album 85 to Africa, Jidenna collaborates with Seun Kuti, son of Afropop pioneer Fela Kuti. More: $25; 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St.; fillmorenc.com
MONDAY, NOV. 4TH CHELSEA WOLFE
What: With albums like Pain is Beauty, Americana dark goddess Chelsea Wolfe builds on the quiet desolation at the heart of old school country, folk and blues. After contrasting her gossamer soprano with bludgeoning doom metal on her 2017 release Hiss Spun, she returns to ethereal folk guitars and angelic yet creepy vocals on her newest album Birth of Violence. More: $25; 7:30 p.m.; McGlohon Theater, 345 N. College St.; blumenthalarts.org
TUESDAY, NOV. 5TH THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
What: After binging on The Weeknd’s hazy pulse and Echo and the Bunnymen’s dour black and white aesthetic, ’90s alt rock woke up with a hellacious hangover and called itself The Neighbourhood. The L.A. quintet may never top the swoony choruses and too-cool vibe of “Sweater Weather,” but they don’t have to. More: $32; 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 820 Hamilton St.; fillmorenc.com
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QCNERVE’S LIFELINE
for cool events happening in the queen city!
The current Intrepid team (from left) Will Johnston, Michelle Kiser, Kevin Hopkins, Jake Lankheit, Cameron Farquhar and Rick Booth.
PHOTO COURTESY OF INTREPID ARTISTS
AN INTREPID ENDEAVOR
Rick Booth’s golden rule has carried Intrepid Artists for 25 years
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BY GRANT BRITT
A 25th anniversary, the traditional gift is silver. But when the celebrants are Charlotte’s premier talent agency, the gold standard is more appropriate. To celebrate a quarter-century in business, Rick Booth of Charlotte-based Intrepid Artists Int’l agency mined ore from the highestyielding blues and rock veins to set up a twonight throwdown featuring an array of the agency’s shiniest talent. Kenny Neal, John Nemeth, Albert Castiglia, Vanessa Collier, Toronzo Cannon and Davy Knowles head up the HEN CELEBRATING
crew on what Intrepid is calling “Rock n’ Roll, Soul & Blues Revival ... The Sequel” to be held at the new Amos’ Southend location on Nov. 8 and then at Neighborhood Theatre on Nov. 9. Intrepid founder, owner and president Booth was born and raised in Charlotte, and his love for music came at a young age — specifically his 10th birthday, when his godmother gifted him a copy of Elton John’s Greatest Hits. His love for music continued through high school, when he would sneak into bars as an early ’80s teen — but not for the same reasons his peers were. “It wasn’t about drinking, it was about
seeing the music,” Booth said recently by phone from his Charlotte headquarters. He started booking bands for his Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat while pursuing a degree in Sociology at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. “Everybody always told me, ‘You’re gonna be a booking agent,’ and I laughed because it was already predetermined that I was gonna go in the hardware biz with my dad,” he said. Booth tried that route from ‘87 to ‘90 but couldn’t make it work. He eventually branched out on his own, and while his sociology degree didn’t hurt, he credits his father with instilling
most of his managerial skills. “Best thing [my dad] ever did was tell me to find another job. I wanted to find something unique rather than wrap a rope around my neck and go work in a big tall glass building Uptown.” In 1990, Booth took a job working for a regional music agency, Hit Attractions, booking mainly cover bands and college bands. Weary of that company’s business practices, he decided to leave after only about four months on the job. When Steve Hecht moved to Charlotte from Boston and started Piedmont Talent in 1990, Booth jumped onboard, working for Hecht for four-and-a-half years before branching out to start Intrepid in 1994. Since then, he’s taken the agency to a level beyond anything he expected when he set out 25 years ago. Intrepid and Intrepid agents have received the Blues Foundation’s prestigious Keeping The Blues Alive Award a record three times — in 1997, 2002 and 2011. Since 2008, Intrepid artists have received more than 100 Blues Music Award nominations and numerous wins, as well as four Grammy nominations and one Grammy win. Booth said his agency’s success stems from his unique service: “Reliability, accountability, honesty and straight talk, that’s what I offer that nobody else offers in this business.” He based his business model on the opposite of what he saw practitioners of his craft passing off as normal business behavior. “I truly believe, treat other people the way you want to be treated, and I didn’t see that being done in the music business when I got in here,” Booth says. “They just didn’t do things the way my dad taught me to run a business. And that was why I felt I needed to go out and change things. I believe do unto others the way you’d have them do unto you. That’s my motto ... and I didn’t get that. I saw a lot of yelling and screaming and hanging up on people. I don’t do business like that.” His solution is a basic one: “If people are rude to me, I kill ‘em with kindness. They usually come around. And that’s what I do, man. I’m a communicator. I’m accountable. I
A ROCK N’ ROLL, SOUL & BLUES REVIVAL…THE SEQUEL: DAY ONE Nov. 8, 7 p.m.; $25 ($40 for both nights); Amos’ Southend, 1423 S. Tryon St.; amossouthend.com
Pg. 19 Oct. 23 - Nov. 5, 2019 - QCNERVE.COM
A ROCK N’ ROLL, SOUL & BLUES REVIVAL…THE SEQUEL: DAY TWO Nov. 9, 6 p.m.; $25 ($40 for both nights); Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St.; neighborhoodtheatre.com
will always call you back, I will always answer your email. As of right now it might take a few days, I’m backed up,” he laughs. “But I’ve been here since 6 o’clock this morning booking bands so I can get caught up. I do what it takes.” Booth’s common-sense approach, reliability and decency have made him successful in a business not known for an abundance of any of those things. Saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter has been on both sides of the Intrepid fence, as a performer and a booker. Starting with the Greensborobased road demon hellraisers the Alkaphonics in the ‘80s, Carpenter wound his way from regional success with Charlie Pastorfield and the Believers to touring nationally with Tinsley Ellis before joining Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers, eventually relocating to New Orleans for a stint with Walter “Wolfman” Washington. He then hired on with Mike Zito and the Wheel in 2012. Now a Las Vegas resident, Carpenter leads his own band when not playing with the Las Vegas Strip Kings. He’s also the musical director and assistant talent buyer for the annual blues showcase in Vegas called The Big Blues Bender, and he leads the Bender’s house band, the Bender Brass. Carpenter ran his own agency between the Pastorfield and Ellis stints, later worked as an agent for Booth’s rival agency, Hugh Southard’s Blue Mountain Artists, and now does most of the booking for the Big Blues Bender as well as perform in and arrange music for it. “An agent’s job — I don’t know if it’s the hardest job in the food chain, but it’s certainly close,” Carpenter said. “A good day as an agent is nothing like a good day as a saxophone player,” he chortles. But now he’s on both sides simultaneously.
me and they had hopes and dreams and desires and needs and I was directly connected with meeting all that. A lot of pressure.” It’s a difficult thing to pull off, even if you’re only concentrating on the booking part, he said. “You’re ultimately working for the musicians,” Carpenter continued. “You need to keep enough going to keep your business flush, but you have to also have enough time to give these guys and women the attention they need. It’s a tricky balance. Rick has done a really great job.” Carpenter isn’t part of the booking process for the anniversary show, but he will perform as the sax man for the “Intrepid Does the Stones” segment of Saturday’s show. “It’s a set of Stones music The Steepwater Band is hosting and I’m gonna go be Bobby Keys for a set,” Carpenter said, chuckling as he recalled the way the gig came to his attention. “That’s right up my alley. Rick called me and said ‘We’re doing this Stones set.’ I said, ‘Dude, you understand that Bobby Keys is one of my big time idols? I am Bobby Keys.’ I based my PHOTO COURTESY OF INTREPID ARTISTS entire thing on Bobby Keys. So that’ll be a lot of Intrepid Artists founder Rick Booth. fun, and that’s just one part of it.” Booth calls it a Stones retrospective. “It’s not gonna be just blues or anything like that, it’s gonna be the Rolling Stones, man! The Steepwater Band, they have a Get Your Ya Ya’s Out show, we started thinking we’ve got a lot of artists, let’s get everybody included in this, then I can have all these special guests come sit in. Jimmy’s gonna be sitting in all night on sax.” He’s also got a local fixture whose resume reflects stints with over 100 local bands sitting in on keys as well: Jason Atkins, aka Greazy Keys, organist for the Calder Cup champion Charlotte Checkers and staple at the jam sessions next door to the Checkers’ home rink at Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Friday night features Albert Castiglia and Vanessa Collier on sax and dobro, respectively, for what Booth describes as the total package. Rick Booth, founder, Intrepid Artists Int’l Steepwater will play a set, as will Asheville’s Empire Strikes Brass. Another performer at the show will be “What makes it difficult for me is that being Greensboro’s Eric Gales. Once hailed as a child a musician, I identified with all the people I was prodigy, Gales has recorded 18 albums with representing. I knew them all and they called major record labels.
“RELIABILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, HONESTY AND STRAIGHT TALK, THAT’S WHAT I OFFER THAT NOBODY ELSE OFFERS IN THIS BUSINESS.”
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Though he’s renowned for his work as a blues-rock guitarist, hip-hop fans might also recognize Gales as Lil’ E, a collaborator with Three 6 Mafia in Memphis. “He’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Jimi Hendrix, and he’s not an impersonator, he’s just Eric Gales,” Booth said, before continuing to list off acts that will hit the stage during the twonight showcase. “Gary Hoey, Mike Zito, Jimmy Carpenter, I’m not sure who else is gonna show up. We’ve got so many artists here, it’s gonna be a full night of music, I can assure you of that.” INFO@QCNERVE.COM
SOUNDWAVE Local bands marked with *
OCTOBER 23
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
October Residency: Acne*, Paint Fumes*, SubMadonna* (Snug Harbor) Katie Toupin, Grayson Foster (Evening Muse) The Original Wailers (Amos’ Southend) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Open Mic/Open Jam (Comet Grill) Noah Gundersen (Neighborhood Theatre) Josh Daniel*, Jeremy Shaw* (Smokey Joe’s) RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B
Maxo Kream (Underground)
OCTOBER 24
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Shoegazers, Amity Pointe*, The Donner Deads*, January Knife (The Milestone) Tyler Hilton (Neighborhood Theatre) New Commute*, Chris Frisina, Shay Martin Lovette, David Childers* (Petra’s) Stroop Kids (The Evening Muse) Open Mic: Helena Radeva & Amirah Brunache* (Tommy’s Pub) Shana Blake& Friends* (Smokey Joe’s) Bentwater* (Comet Grill)
Pg. 20 Oct. 23 - Nov. 5, 2019 - QCNERVE.COM
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Walker Montgomery (Tin Roof) Jason Moss & The Hosses*, Truckstop Preachers* (Visulite Theatre) Shaun Abbott (Tin Roof)
OCTOBER 25
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Chantae Cann, Ryan Connors (Evening Muse) X Ambassadors, Bear Hands (The Fillmore) Badflower, Weathers (The Underground) The Walbournes*, Fortezza, Sunday Boxing* (Skylark Social Club) BoomBox, BomBassic (Visulite Theatre) Deadlock NCHC, Witchpit, Queen City Rejects*
(Tommy’s Pub) Caracara, Late Bloomer*, Cicala (The Milestone) The Menders*, Mr. Genius and the Robot Inventors*, No Rope*, T.C. Costello (Freeman’s Pub) Troublemaker (Smokey Joe’s) Satsang, Jonny Wayne (Free Range Brewing)
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Driftwood (Evening Muse) Boo Bash 2019: Out of the Blue (Coyote Joe’s)
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Carolina Voices: Dead or Alive (Duke Energy Theater) Charlotte Symphony: The Machine Plays Pink Floyd (Belk Theater)
Lenny Federal Band* (Comet Grill) Koe Wetzel, Out of the Blue (Coyote Joe’s)
OCTOBER 27
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Mess, Problem Addict*, Charles Walker (The Bizarre Ride, SlimKid3, Fatlip, DJ Wundrkut, Mic Milestone) Metal Church Sunday Service (The Milestone) Flont & Kingz (Snug Harbor) Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Hollis Brown Jack Harlow (The Underground) Cat Clyde, Jamie Drake (Evening Muse) (Neighborhood Theatre) The Temptations, The Four Tops (Belk Theater) RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B
JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL
Coré S. Cotton (Booth Playhouse) Carolina Voices: Dead or Alive (Duke Energy Theater)
OCTOBER 26
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Griffin House, Icon For Hire (Neighborhood Theatre) Halloween Fiasco: Spowder, Uncle Buck*, Jaguardini, Bob Fleming Duo, Neighborhood Wildlife, Smelly Felly, My Blue Hope* (The Milestone) The Body, Torch Runner, Whispering Man (Snug Harbor) Halloween Havoc: Antiseen*, Green Fiend*, NAC*, Lil Skritt* (Skylark Social Club) JMichael Peeples (Evening Muse) Cassette Rewind*, Gump Fiction* (Amos’ Southend) Doom Cabaret Featuring October, The Negulators*, The Body Bags*, Dumpster Service*, Terpsichore Raqs Bellydancer (Tommy’s Pub) Turnstyles (Smokey Joe’s) Matt Walsh Band (Comet Grill) Cyan* (RiRa) Erath Old (Tin Roof) Into the Fog (Legion Brewing) Adam Ezra Group (Free Range Brewing)
Justin Hayward, Michael Dawes (McGlohon Theater) Omari & the Hellhounds* (Comet Grill) Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones (Hattie’s Tap & Tavern) JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL
Bill Hannah’s Jazz Session (Petra’s)
OCTOBER 28
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Lusus, Lo, Murder Maiden, Through All This Time (Skylark Social Club) White Reaper, The Nude Party, Wombo (Amos’ Southend)
Follow our Spotify Playlist PREVIEW YOUR LOCAL CHARLOTTE SOUNDWAVE ARTISTS HERE
1. OPEN SPOTIFY ON YOUR SMARTPHONE 2. TAP THE SEARCH BAR 3. CLICK THE CAMERA ICON IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER 4. POINT CAMERA AT THE CODE BELOW
OCTOBER 29
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Smokin’ Js Open Jam Band & Friends (Smokey Joe’s) Melvin Seals & Jerry Garcia Band, John Kadlecik, Jennifer Hartswick (Neighborhood Theatre) Under Cover: GASP*, Gardeners*, Sgt. Peeples’s Lonely Hearts Club Band* (Snug Harbor) Dollar Signs*, The Eradicator, Devon Kay & The Solutions (The Milestone) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill) Uptown Unplugged: Rotie Salley (Tin Roof) The Dirty Grass Players with Sam Tayloe* & Zack Hayes* (Evening Muse) Joan Shelly, Jake Xerxes Fussell (Stage Door Theater)
OCTOBER 30
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
October Residency: Acne*, Funeral Chic*, Bangzz (Snug Harbor) Adult Mom, Oceanator, Stress Fractures*, Faye* (The Milestone) Jimmy Webb (McGlohon Theater) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Josh Daniel*, Jeremy Shaw* (Smokey Joe’s) Hayden Lee*, Red Stone Revival* (Evening Muse)
OCTOBER 31
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ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Ol’ Sport*, Twin Beds*, No Rope*, Heckdang* (The Milestone) Slay Halloween: Poontanglers* & Special Guests (Snug Harbor) Wakaan Halloween: Liquid Stranger, Shlump, Conrank, INZO (The Fillmore) Scotty Sire, Bruce Wiegner, Chris Bloom (The Underground) Of Good Nature*, Kendall Street Company, Bakalao Stars* (Amos’ Southend) Shana Blake & Friends* Halloween Show (Smokey Joe’s Café) Hunters Travesty* (Comet Grill) Alex Butler (Tin Roof)
NOVEMBER 1 ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Day of the Dead Fiasco (all*): Something Went Wrong, Take the Fall, The Boron Heist, October, The Cocker Spaniels, The Whiskey Predicament, Mr. Genius and the Robot Inventors (The Milestone) Runaway Gin - Phish Tribute (Neighborhood Theatre)
Hovvdy, Kevin Krauter, Caroline Says, Wild Trees* (Snug Harbor) MercyMe, Crowder, Micah Tyler (Spectrum Center) Beabadoobee, Clairo (The Underground) Dennis DeYoung: The Music of Styx (Knight Theater) Flaw, Circle of Echoes* (Amos’ Southend) Corporate Fandango, The Flight Risks*, Harry & The Hootenannies, Twinvasion*, Izar Estelle (Tommy’s Pub)
NOVEMBER 2 ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Windhand, Russian Circles (Neighborhood Theatre) Reason Define*, Blackwater Drowning*, Revel, Screaming Phantoms (The Milestone) Catholics, Cuzco*, Countdown From Ten, Pet Bug* (Snug Harbor) Wolves at The Gate, Comrades, My Epic (Skylark Social Club) Nile (The Underground) Thievery Corporation (The Fillmore) Trashcan Sinatras (Evening Muse) DownTown Abby & The Echoes* (Evening Muse) Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi Tribute, Poison’d Poison Tribute (Amos’ Southend) The Simon & Garfunkel Story (Knight Theater) Old Towne Criers Reunion Show (Tommy’s Pub) Brangle (Smokey Joe’s) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Mike Strauss Band* (Comet Grill) Aaron Watson, Out of the Blue (Coyote Joe’s) Randy Steele (Hattie’s Tap and Tavern) JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL
Maria Howell*, Noel Freidline* (Middle C Jazz) Jazzology (Comet Grill)
NOVEMBER 3 ROCK/PUNK/METAL
The Allman Betts Band (Neighborhood Theatre) Metal Church Sunday Service (The Milestone) Omari & the Hellhounds* (Comet Grill) New Local* (Tin Roof) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Joe Middleton*, Jordan Middleton* (Evening Muse) RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B
Bone Snugs-N-Harmony (Snug Harbor)
Visit qcnerve.com for the complete Soundwave list.
PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN
eccentric items and antiques like Ouija boards and gothic tea kettles. Everything on the walls is for all, while the shop will also serve exclusive blends of coffee from Crossroads Coffee in Waxhaw, in house or in bulk, and tea from Atlantic Spice Company, among others. One demographic that will benefit plenty from Ritual’s presence is gamers. Just next door in the same building as Ritual is Get Some Game, which regularly holds video game and board game tournaments. The pastries served at Ritual will keep the neighbors fed, but the coffee plays a bigger role. “We’ll have stuff that is easy to eat, especially for these gaming guys,” Wand says. “They do all nighters and so we want to be there for them, too. Coffee is crucial for them.” But in the end, Ritual is a space focused on making members of the LGBTQ+ community feel welcome. Ritual co-founders Erica Wand (left) and Kelli Baron. “Minority communities come first in this area for us,” says Wand. “It’s funny, even having these conversations even with my parents, they’re like, ‘I just don’t understand why you felt the need to pigeonhole yourself into a strange place,’ and I’m which began as an LGBTQ+ events calendar from nonprofit activities to focus on the business like, ‘Well, you can find a coffee shop on every and has since grown into a nonprofit that plans while Baron focuses on Queer City from within the corner. But finding a queer, weird occult coffee shop is a whole other ballgame.’ Having a space that is events and serves as a networking group for local space. LGBTQ+ organizations. “We were realizing that what we were doing strange, unique, interesting and fun to come to is It was at Comic Girl that Baron met Erica Wand, here wasn’t enough for the burnout that we were super important. I think that’s most important to who began volunteering every once in a while receiving,” Wand says. “So we were like, ‘We’ve got our community but even important to Charlotte as a whole. You have to have that culture, and it gets “just to pick up chicks,” as she puts it, but ended up to come up with some sort of option, something heavily invested in the co-op, as did Baron. Along so that we can try to make a change here … How whitewashed all across the community.” Baron picks up where Wand left off, as the two with other Comic Girl volunteers, the two worked about we work together so that we can create a are wont to do: “There are some places around tirelessly at trying to balance nonprofit work with space that I can maintain for [Queer City] to be their other jobs while still serving coffee in the able to utilize as their hub and the place that they Charlotte that everyone knows are queer-safe, but they just happen to be queer-safe because they’re co-op for miniscule tips. The work led to feelings of can go and do their community work.” burnout, and the two were just about ready to give Following a successful opening weekend that open and welcoming in general. This space is more up when an opportunity presented itself. began on Oct. 18, Ritual and Queer City will host a of, while we’re looking to go beyond the queer Those who were left running Comic Girl had Halloween Spooktacular dance party on Nov. 2 fea- community, we’re definitely putting the needs of put what they could into it and were ready to step turing live music and a costume contest for those the queer community at the top of the list.” Ritual is a safe space in many aspects, including down themselves. Baron and Wand had ideas not ready to move into the Thanksgiving vibes. the decision to keep it a sober space. Baron points about ways to make the shop run better as a I meet with Wand and Baron in Ritual on a out that the LGBTQ community deals with higher for-profit business, separate from the operations recent night just as they were putting finishing rates of addiction and alcoholism. of Queer City or other nonprofits like Transcend touches on the space, which has the homey feel “It isn’t possible to [hang out in bars and Charlotte, a transgender advocacy and support of a residential kitchen. Gone are the comics and breweries], especially for people who may suffer group for which Baron serves as president of the (most of) the books that were so prevalent in from any kind of alcoholism or anything, who may board. So the two partnered up and opened Ritual the Comic Girl days. The walls are adorned with be allergic, who aren’t comfortable being in spaces Coffee, Tea and Oddities, with Wand stepping away paintings from local artists and shelves full of
THE RITUAL OF INCLUSION
New coffee shop picks up where Comic Girl left off
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BY RYAN PITKIN
HEN KELLI BARON realized they were transgender, there weren’t many places in Charlotte where they felt they could turn. Sure, there were LGBTQ-welcoming hangouts, but none that were loudly inclusive, and certainly none that were centered on trans inclusion. “When I first figured out I was trans, the only place I had to find community was Reddit and Facebook, which are not good places to find your community,” Baron says. “I went through the hardest parts of transition by myself ... Not knowing where to go as a queer person — as a newly hatched queer person — was hard, so I just stayed home.” In November 2017, the same month that Baron came out publicly, local activist, musician and photojournalist Lara Americo opened Comic Girl Coffee, an LGBTQ-owned-and-operated bookstore and coffee co-op that hosted regular LGBTQ-centered events and gatherings. Eventually, Baron began hanging out at Comic Girl and volunteering. It was from the Comic Girl co-op that they launched Queer City Charities,
QUEER CITY HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR Nov. 2, 7-11 p.m.; Free; Ritual Coffee, Tea & Oddities, 1224 Commercial Ave.; facebook.com/Ritualcoffeeteaoddities
“WHILE WE’RE LOOKING TO GO BEYOND THE QUEER COMMUNITY, WE’RE DEFINITELY PUTTING THE NEEDS OF THE QUEER COMMUNITY AT THE TOP OF THE LIST.” Kelli Baron, co-founder, Ritual Coffee; founder, Queer City Charities
where people are intoxicated, or are just tired of it.” Besides, Wand adds, who needs a new place to drink in Charlotte? “We’ve got plenty of it in Charlotte, the last thing we need is another brewery,” she says. Wand and Baron are looking forward to hosting more events like the one held on opening weekend, a vendor market and variety show featuring performances from Lena Gray, Stray Cat Sideshow and Eevee Rubii for which more than 100 people showed up. The two plan to continue hosting LGBTQ-centered events like the open mics and game nights that began with Comic Girl, while adding new, bigger events like the opening weekend variety
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855-238-6305
THE NEWBIE FOODIE A TRANSPLANT’S FIRST IMPRESSION New column will feature first look at Queen City’s food scene BY DARRELL HORWITZ
CHANGE IS NEVER easy, especially when you’ve lived in one city your entire life. You know where show. everything is, you know what you like, and in my For Baron, Ritual and Queer City are more than case, you know your favorite spots to eat. Since I live hangouts, they are a continuance of the Comic to eat, that’s very important to me. Girl mission under a new flag inspired by her own Moving to Charlotte from Chicago means better personal experience with transitioning. It’s easy to weather, better taxes and (I’m hoping) more great see the emotion involved when she speaks about food. Since I’m new in town, my quest involves why it’s important to her that Ritual be successful. finding must-eat establishments that make my “Had we had places like this that were loudly mouth water and I’ll be taking you along for the ride. queer-accepting, that might have made a big difWith so many people moving to Charlotte, like ference to me during those couple of really rough me, this is an opportunity for you to get a head start years,” she says, beginning to choke up but holding on places to check out. Perhaps you’re a native, but it back. “So it’s important to me because I’ve lived don’t get around much. I’ll do it for you. Or maybe that isolation, and I refuse to let anybody cry the you’re someone just visiting looking for a place to tears that I cried.” eat. You will read about the hits and misses, with RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM none of the bias that a longtime Charlottean may bring to the table. Along the way on my road to discovery, you’ll learn a little about me. My wife will often accompany me, both for companionship and so we can try more dishes. While I live to eat, she eats to live, but don’t worry, I will sample everything she orders. And if she gives it a thumbs-up, you might want to give it a try. I’ve already visited several restaurants in town. Some might stretch your wallet a bit, while others can become a regular spot to check out. While I tend to gravitate toward meat on special occasions like my birthday, I like to sample everything life — or in this instance Charlotte — has to offer. When choosing sides, I choose spicy, but the wife is there for everyone that prefers the milder side of the spectrum. On our recent wedding anniversary, we went to a local establishment that served one of the best pieces of fish that ever crossed my lips. I’ll tell you about it in the near future. I’m excited to try a certain Thai hot spot, as I’ve always enjoyed the cuisine and can’t wait to see if they’re cooking up the same good stuff here that I used to eat back home. As well as advising you of places to try, I want to give you fair warning if something is not up to par. I don’t want to alienate my new neighbors, but it
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wouldn’t be fair to you if I wasn’t truthful. Here is one of my favorite food memories. Many years ago, my brother read a review about Chicago’s in the Chicago Tribune. He ventured out later that night and woke up the family by sticking a rib under our noses as we slept. We groggily wandered into the dining room like the walking dead as we sat at the table and sucked the meat off the bones of a few before heading back to sleep. I remember getting up that morning licking my fingers as the taste still lingered. It was that good! To get a better idea of what I like, these are a few of the dishes indelibly etched in my brain that I had to have before leaving Chicago. Most of them had my doctor on call, monitoring my cholesterol. I had my last burger at Au Cheval, selected Best Burger in America in 2012. It lived up to the title, and the fries are just divine too. I hope to find something close in Charlotte. Al’s Italian Beef, named one of the best sandwiches in America by the Food Network, was a must-have. I was surprised to run into a Charlotte establishment that serves Italian beef, as I worried that it would no longer be an option for me here in Charlotte. I will let you know if it’s worth a visit for you once I try them out. I visited Smoque BBQ for their luscious brisket one last time. Being in Charlotte, I’m looking forward to trying the local barbecue spots as I know it’s one of the foods the city and state is known for. After reading this, you can understand why I checked out a healthy alternative shortly after moving to town. Just like me, it’s a recent addition to Charlotte and I’m sure you will hear about it from me. It may seem like all my faves involve red meat, but you’ll discover my range is more expansive than what I’m letting on here. I always like trying new things. Food is something that everyone and no one can agree on. Maybe you will like my suggestions or question my palate, since food is subjective. I think if you give me a chance, you will find I won’t steer you wrong. And if you’re good, I’ll give you a cookie. You will see how that fits in, as well. INFO@QCNERVE.COM
DILWORTH
SOUTH END
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DILWORTH NEIGHBORHOOD GRILLE
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WHAT DO THEY ALL HAVE?
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ACROSS
1 Designer 8 Put in cipher 14 Cocky walks 20 United, e.g. 21 In a Ziploc bag, e.g. 22 “The Gift of the Magi” writer 23 Zippers 25 Contacts, e.g. 26 Lotto variant 27 “... cup -- cone?” 28 -- kwon do (martial art) 29 “Taps” co-star Timothy 30 Data entry needs 35 Aftermaths 39 “Where are -- now?” 40 Hinge (on) 41 Aunt, in Argentina 42 Fill with joy 43 Lay -- thick 44 Fonda of film 45 Just know 46 Office cabinet items 49 Center of similes 50 Military chaplain 51 Cake level 52 Lamb bearer 53 Ireland’s -- Lingus 54 Last half of a typical golf course 59 Some aluminum recyclables 65 Hwy. number lead-in 66 Elbowed, say 67 A number of 68 Dictionary lookup facilitators 70 Affirm the truth of 71 Ammo for air rifles 72 Even one 73 “Take --!” (“Congrats!”) 74 Big name in direct sales 77 “I got it!” 78 Chrome, Firefox and Safari
85 Shop 86 Lackluster 87 1990s Israeli president Weizman 88 Video’s counterpart 89 Bardic tribute 90 -- Field (Mr. Met’s home) 91 Rhine feeder 92 Enrollments 94 Cafe crowd 98 Like a constellation 99 Siouan people 100 Hirt and Gore 101 Biblical son of Isaac 105 Tug at 106 Theme of this puzzle 110 Colorful ring in the eye 111 Well-drilling apparatus 112 Pantheon members 113 Corn seed 114 Spend time in, as a hotel 115 One tearing up the road
DOWN
1 Wine barrel 2 Tick off 3 Bard’s Ireland 4 “Battle Cry” actor Ray 5 Dead heat 6 Hoofing it 7 Replenishes the arsenal of 8 The “e” of i.e. 9 Born, in Brest 10 Hiking flasks 11 “Mrs.” with a famous cow 12 Bo of “10” 13 Masthead names, for short 14 Like sugar, but not oil, in water 15 1982 Richard Pryor film 16 -- -car (airport service) 17 Not collated, e.g. 18 More stylish 19 Pt. of OS or GPS 24 Exhaust 29 Doglike carnivore 30 Symbol on a music score 31 Pronounce 32 Hammer-wielding god 33 Slate cleaner 34 Store event 35 Ump relative 36 Gridiron star Manning 37 “My gal” of song 38 Off-roading vehicle, briefly 43 Brainstorm, in Brest 44 Chattered
45 Ludicrous comedies 47 Inflammation of the ear 48 Flax product 50 Tick off 52 Holiday lead-ins 53 “Terrible” toddler time 54 Except for 55 Grayish hue 56 Grand -- wine 57 Mortal -- (video game series) 58 Lumpy, as fabric 59 Squarish, as a car 60 Stretch (out) 61 Mary of “Dodsworth” 62 Gallery stuff 63 Turner who led a revolt 64 -- -mo replay 66 Punishment-related 69 Ball-shaped bloom 70 Truncated wd. 73 Red as -74 Bow-wielding god 75 Was certain 76 One trying to pin a rival 77 Cowboy singer Gene
SOLUTION ON PAGE 30
78 Arsenal array 79 Pound the poet 80 Clowns 81 World lighter 82 College URL ending 83 Tear apart 84 Ship’s call for help 86 Active by day 90 Singing King 91 Chief Hun 92 Cone, cube and sphere 93 Arched body part 95 Osprey claw 96 Like a well-pitched inning 97 How sashimi is eaten 101 Sermon conclusion? 102 Pronounced 103 Have -- in one’s bonnet 104 Brezhnev’s fed. 105 Its cap. is Islamabad 106 Lean- -- (hovels) 107 1998 Angelina Jolie biopic 108 Certain NCO 109 Rush along
OCTOBER 23 - OCTOBER 29 ARIES (March 21 to April 19) You could be caught in a torrent of advice from well-meaning friends and colleagues this week. But remember, Lamb, you are at your best when you are your own inimitable self. TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Expect strong efforts to get you to accept things as they are and not question them. But ignore all that and continue your inquiries until you’re sure you have all the answers you need. GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Heavier than usual family and workplace duties compete for your time this week. Try to strike a balance so that you’re not overwhelmed by either. Pressures ease by week’s end.
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CANCER (June 21 to July 22) It’s a good time for the Moon Child to show off your uniquely inspired approach to the culinary skills -- especially if they’re directed toward impressing someone special. LEO (July 23 to August 22) You might be happy about the re-emergence of a long-deferred deal. But don’t pounce on it quite yet. Time can change things. Be sure the values you looked for before are still there. VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Try to rein in your super-critical attitude, even if things aren’t being done quite as you would prefer. Remember: What you say now could create an awkward situation later on. LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Although you can expect on-the-job cooperation from most of your colleagues this week, some people might
OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 5
insist on knowing more about your plans before ARIES (March 21 to April 19) It might not be wise to they can accept them. pursue goals involving others, unless you can stop impulsively rejecting new ideas. Either open your SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) Creating mind or wait until next week, when this “ornery” another way to do things is commendable. But you mood passes. could find some resistance this week from folks who would rather stick with the tried-and-true than try TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) It’s a good time for the something new. Bovine to be creative and practical for yourself and your surroundings. Shop wisely, not impulsively, SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) You and keep your Bull’s eye focused on quality, not usually can keep your aim focused on your goal. quantity. But you might need to make adjustments to cope with unsteadiness factors that could arise over the GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) You should feel more course of the week. confident about moving ahead with plans that had to be delayed by an unexpected turn of events. Also, CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) News family matters might need more time than first arrives about a projected move. Be prepared to deal anticipated. with a series of possible shifts, including starting and finishing times, and how much the budget will CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Be considerate of others actually cover. as you move into a new area in your professional life. Take time to meet people and discuss mutual AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) A new goals. The more you get to know each other, the relationship needs time to develop. Let things better. flow naturally. It could be a different story with a workplace situation, which might require faster and LEO (July 23 to August 22) Creating a fuss could get more focused attention. your ideas noticed quickly. But it would be best to present your case, and then wait for a reaction to PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Accept a follow in due course, rather than try to force it to compliment without trying to troll for any hidden happen. reason beyond what was said. After all, don’t you deserve to be praised every now and then? Of VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Unkept course you do. promises might cause plans to go awry this week. You can either grumble about people “letting you BORN THIS WEEK: You like to weigh all possibilities down” or find a way to make the best of it and move before making a decision. You would be a fine on. The choice is yours. judge, or even be a star in a jury room. LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Putting off making a commitment early in the week could be
a good move. It’s best to act when you know you’re making an informed decision. Expect more facts to emerge by the week’s end. SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) A recent act of kindness on your part could take on special meaning this week. Also, look for signs of upcoming changes in both your personal and professional relationships. SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) Many of the tougher communication barriers between you and others in the workplace or at home could begin breaking down this week. Expect some surprises to emerge. CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) Your “tough love” attitude toward someone you care for could be misunderstood. Try to be less judgmental and show more consideration in the way you relate to that person. AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) An unexpected workplace challenge could be daunting. But take what you know (and you know more than you realize) and apply it to the problem, and you should see positive results. PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Recent relationship changes for both single and paired Pisces continue to influence much of your week. Keep your focus on developing the positive aspects as you move along. BORN THIS WEEK: You set your goals with assurance and influence others to follow suit. You would be an excellent philosopher and teacher. 2018 KING FEATURES SYND., INC.
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I don’t see why she should. You don’t trust her not to cheat on you, and I don’t see why you should. So why promise not to cheat? Why waste time and emotional energy policing each other for evidence of what you both know to be true: You’re going to cheat on each other. That you can trust in. So instead of making promises you can’t keep and then having meltdowns and stealing each other’s phones and breaking up and getting back together, CPOS, make a promise you can keep. Not to be faithful but to be considerate. And discreet. Promise not to do anything that makes her feel like Doing things the hard way she isn’t your top priority even if you do fuck around I am a guy in my 40s, handsome, more occasionally, and ask her to make the same promise financially successful than most, and a classic to you. Then you can move forward as honest sluts sexual scoundrel. I cheated on my ex-wife and and not lying cheats. every girlfriend I’ve ever had. I’m currently dating a woman in her 20s. I’m married to a loving, handsome man. For We are both each other’s ideal type. the first several years of our relationship, we She has as scandalous a past as I do but has had amazing sex. At some point after moving “accomplished” more in a shorter time. We in together, my interest in having sex with met via a hookup app. Then another one. him decreased significantly. This has been a And another one. We enjoyed each other’s pattern in every long-term relationship I’ve company from the moment we met, and the ever had. Living together seems to diminish sex was great. (We share a few not-easy-to- my attraction to my partner, which is hugely match kinks.) Most of her stuff is now at my problematic when I am in a long-term house. We’ve had many deep dives into our monogamous relationship. respective pasts. We cringe now at how we The second problem is that my kink needs met and why we’ve hooked up with so many are not being met. My husband is aware of my random people. kinks and is GGG in theory, but he lacks the Here’s the issue: After 12 months together, skill to deliver what I’m interested in. Before with too many breakups to count, we have I met my husband, I spent many years as a no idea how to move forward. We cannot member of a very active kink scene in a big establish trust. We are in love and everything’s city. I miss the friendships and experiences I great … so long as we have our eyeballs on had when I was able to share my kinks. each other. Once out of direct sight, we both Unfortunately, in addition to living in a turn into possessive assholes. So many phones place without access to these kinds of events have been stolen and thrown away, I can’t and workshops, my husband is monogamous count. How do two sluts find peace? without compromise. He is unwilling to coCAN’T PART OVER SEX top me alongside another Dominant partner and unwilling to let me bottom for others solo You’ve cheated on everyone you’ve ever been with, regardless of whether sex is involved. Within and your girlfriend has presumably cheated on the past several years, this frustration has led everyone she’s ever been with. (That’s what you me to seek out the occasional experience with meant by “she has as scandalous a past as I do,” others, which is always discovered. right?) My sex drive seems intact when I fantasize But instead of embracing the cheats and sluts about hot, rough scenes with other people, you both know yourselves to be and thanking your but I experience very little desire for my fucky stars for bringing you together, CPOS, you felt husband. I’m at a loss. I adore this man, and obligated to disavow your past behaviors — some haven’t ever felt like it would be worth it to of which sound legitimately terrible — and slut- leave him just so I could get my kinky needs shame yourselves and each other. And for what? met, but we are at an impasse. Is it even You are still the people you were before you started possible to find a compromise? theatrically cringing about how you met. SEX ALACRITY DIMINISHED She doesn’t trust you not to cheat on her, and
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CHEATERS CLUB
relationships have been monogamous, and they all resulted in the end of rough and adventurous sex with new partners, well, perhaps that’s what is cratering your desire for committed partners — the limitation, not the cohabitation. And who knows? If you were free to fuck around with other people — if your husband didn’t symbolize the end of sexy adventures — maybe you’d still want to fuck him. But if he does give you the freedom to fuck around and you still don’t want to fuck him, SAD, do your husband a favor and leave him. And then no more monogamy or cohabitation for you, got it?
Knowing what you do about yourself — your attraction to a partner craters after moving in together, you have a powerful need to explore your kinks with casual play partners — you shouldn’t be cohabitating and/or making monogamous commitments. But you are and you have, SAD, so what now? There’s no middle ground between an uncompromisingly monogamous marriage and the kind of freedom to explore your kinks that you need to feel fulfilled, partnered or not. But your husband caught you fucking around — or kinking around On the Lovecast, SImon Doonan on the endurance — and has presumably forgiven you, seeing as you of drag: savagelovecast.com; mail@savagelove.net; aren’t e-mailing during your divorce proceedings. So Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage; ITMFA.org perhaps if given a choice between letting you and losing you, SAD, he would let you. And who knows? If all your long-term
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