Queen City Nerve - February 9, 2022

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 6; FEBRUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 22, 2022; WWW.QCNERVE.COM

Arts: Fortune Feimster on her return home pg. 8

News: On the front lines of the fight against homelessness pg. 4

The Good,

The Wurst

and the Beautiful

How The Good Wurst Company lifted me out of a pandemic funk

By Timothy Depeugh | pg. 16

A Play by

Heidi Schreck Directed by

Oliver Butler Starring

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cassie Beck

FEB. 15-20 • KNIGHT THEATER Pg. 2 - FEB 9 - 22, 2022

AT LEVINE CENTER FOR THE ARTS

BlumenthalArts.org • 704.372.1000

TABLE OF CONTENTS NEWS & OPINION ARTS &

6 Hats for Home by Karie Simmons A Charlotte Dreamer connects with his heritage through new venture

CULTURE

8 Favor the Bold by Karie Simmons Fortune Feimster discusses her rise to success before a sold-out homecoming

PUBLISHER

10 Lifeline: 10 Cool Things To Do in 2 Weeks

JUSTIN LAFRANCOIS jla fra nc o is @ q c nerve.com

EDITOR - IN - CHIEF

RYAN PITKIN rp i t k in @q c ne rve.com

12 A New Leaf by Pat Moran Davey Blackburn returns to music after a harrowing family ordeal

MUSIC

LAYOUT EDITOR

CHARLIE MARION c h e le n e.m a rio n@gma il .com

4 Clowns on the Front Line by Nikolai Mather Mutual Aid Free Store works with displaced neighbors who fall through the cracks

15 Soundwave

DIGITAL EDITOR

FOOD & DRINK

STAFF WRITER

LIFESTYLE

16 The Good, The Wurst and the Beautiful by Timothy Depeugh How The Good Wurst Company lifted me out of a pandemic funk

KARIE SIMMONS k si m m o n s @ q c nerve.com PAT MORAN p m o ra n@q c ne rve.com

STAFF WRITER

NIKOLAI MATHER n ma th e r@ q c ne rve.com

AD SALES EXECUTIVE RENN WILSON rwi ls o n@q c ne rve.com

TO PLACE AN ADVERTISEMENT EMAIL INFO@QCNERVE.COM QUEEN CI T Y N ERV E W ELCOM E S SUB M I SSI ONS OF AL L K IN DS. PL E ASE SEND SUB M I SSI ONS OR S TORY PI TCHES TO IN F O @ Q CNE RV E .COM .

QUEEN CI T Y N E RV E IS PUB LI SH E D E V E RY O T HER W E DN ESDAY B Y NERV E M E DIA PRODUC T ION S LLC.

Thanks to our contributors: Grant Baldwin, Timothy Depeugh, Kenty Chung, Aerin Spruill, Marc Prosper, Maria Eloisa Blackburn, Brian Twitty, Daniel Coston, Kent Meister, Trevor Scott, Walter McBride, and Dan Savage.

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 6; FEBRUARY 10 - FEBRUARY 22, 2022; WWW.QCNERVE.COM

New plasma donors can earn a bonus in their first month at BioLife while making a difference for people with rare diseases.

Download the BioLife Plasma Services App or visit our website at

www.biolifeplasma.com Scan the QR Code for more information.

Arts: Fortune Feimster on her return home pg. 8

News: On the front lines of the fight against homelessness pg. 4

The Good,

The Wurst

and the Beautiful

How The Good Wurst Company lifted me out of a pandemic funk

By Timothy Depeugh | pg. 16

@QUEENCI T Y NE RV E W W W.QCNERV E .COM

COVER PHOTO BY: KENT Y CHUNG COVER DESIGN BY: CHARLIE MARION

© 2022 Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. All rights reserved.

Pg. 3 - FEB 9 - 22, 2022

Q UEE N CI T Y N E RV E I S LOCAT E D IN AD V EN T COWOR K I N G AT 9 33 LOUISE AV E N UE , CHA R LOT T E , N C, 28204.

F IRST ISSUE OF Q UE E N CI T Y N E RV E F R E E .

EACH A DDI T I ONA L I SSUE $ 5 .

18 Puzzles 20 Aerin It Out by Aerin Spruill 20 Strange Facts 21 Horoscope 22 Savage Love

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE CLOWNS ON THE FRON T LINE

Mutual Aid Free Store works with displaced neighbors who fell through the cracks

BY NIKOLAI MATHER

PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN

Pg. 4 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

THE MAFS CREW (FROM LEFT): MAGIC, JUST NIC, T-BONE, AND TEXAS.

Luke was the first, and perhaps most senior, team member with the Mutual Aid Free Store (MAFS) that I had the privilege to meet. He welcomed me by jumping up on me and licking my face.

Yes, Luke is a dog.

“Luke’s the star of the show,” said fellow team member Tyler Bone.

Once Luke hopped off me, I was able to meet the four other members of MAFS: Magena “Magic” Morris, Tyler “T-Bone” Bone, Nic “Texas” Feldt and Nic “Just Nic” White. Sitting on the back of a Dodge Caravan that overflowed with supplies, we waited for the day’s volunteers to join us.

The Mutual Aid Free Store (MAFS) formed in November 2020 as a response to Charlotte’s growing crisis of houselessness.

The organization, which is founded on principles of mutual aid and harm reduction, seeks to support those living on the streets by providing eviction crisis response, resources and education.

I followed MAFS on a day of service in January.

Together, we set up free pop-up shops, stocked remote resource outposts, and connected with our displaced neighbors.

That afternoon, we discussed the shortcomings of Charlotte’s response to houselessness and the road ahead.

You might have heard of MAFS already. Even

though the team partnered up less than two years ago, the organization has already built a presence in Charlotte.

In November 2020, one of the group’s first actions was to launch a postcard campaign demanding a response to the houselessness crisis from Mayor Vi Lyles. Then they set about doing the work themselves.

In November 2021, MAFS set up two community resource dropboxes, which they call Displaced Donation Stations, where people can drop off clothing, toiletries and other supplies for displaced neighbors.

Both projects have earned them national media attention and a sizable social media following thanks in part to their collaboration with local artists to make the boxes stand out.

But MAFS goes beyond awareness campaigns.

The organization’s main focuses are eviction crisis response, helping tent-dwelling neighbors safely relocate after an encampment is cleared, and running the free store.

Typically operated every two weeks, the namesake free store is the most direct form of assistance MAFS can offer in a city where decades of inaction have led to a housing crisis that can make more broad support, such as finding a home for their displaced neighbors, seem impossible.

COURTESY OF MAFS

MARYSSA PICKETT (LEFT) AND MAGIC WITH ‘SCAR.’

Our day of volunteering began with opening up the free store.

After a half-dozen volunteers showed up, Morris gathered us in a circle and had us introduce ourselves. She gave a quick explainer of what we were about to do: Build the pop-up shop, help clean up the tent sites and, above all, connect with our displaced neighbors.

“Hanging out with them — talking to them — is far more important than giving them their tenth toothbrush,” she said.

The spirit of connection drives MAFS’ artistic approach. Morris told me the postcard campaign wouldn’t have been possible without artwork from MAFS member Bone and their friend Maryssa Pickett, who also helped Morris paint the two colorful anthropomorphic donation stations named Scar and Slimer.

“People aren’t relating to or understanding the [houseless] community, so if I can reach them through art … then maybe that will work,” said Morris.

“We’re trying to educate the community. Art is just a good way to do it. We’re fortunate to receive what we do because we’re all talented.”

“We’re also all very DIY by nature, too,” Bone added. “Always trying to do something new and different.”

The DIY spirit also runs strong in the popup shop. The donations collected from Scar and Slimer make up the bulk of the pop-up store’s free merchandise. MAFS also gives away enamel pins, books, ’zines and hot coffee.

MAFS makes a point of displaying the clothing on racks and in dressers. Instead of digging through trash bags or donation bins, houseless neighbors can pick out the items they want off the racks, and carry them away in shopping bags.

On the Sunday I joined them, Morris played a funky mix of punk, rap and children’s music over a portable speaker at the pop-up.

As volunteers finished sorting and neighbors began shopping, Morris waved me over. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

Teaming up against evictions

While Luke led us past NC Music Factory Boulevard, beyond the Salvation Army and the food bank, Morris told me about how MAFS got its start.

The group was borne of a partnership between two organizations, Not Fade Away and Bleach Impaired.

As COVID-19 exacerbated Charlotte’s housing crisis, leading to the formation of a large “Tent City” along 12th Street that made it so the city’s elite could no longer turn their cheek, the two

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE

team was eager to unwind after a long day outside, and ready to process some of the challenges.

One of the main challenges MAFS encounters in this line of work is what the team views as an inadequate response from local government and larger-scale nonprofits.

MAFS primarily works with people who live in tents, not shelters, and while the shelter system has “a lot more responsibility on its shoulders,” there are still so many people falling through the cracks.

Local shelters have increased capacity as much as they can during the pandemic, but there are rules within the local shelter system that push some people away.

The implementation of curfews, the segregation of men from women and children, and/or the policing of drug use, among other rules, can leave some folks feeling like shelters aren’t an option.

“The tent dwellers are the ones that can’t make it in shelters,” she said. “And so [MAFS is] now

We call ourselves clowns because …

We’re just people.

We’re not heroes, we’re not saints.

resolving those issues with literally no resources or even acknowledgement. “ I asked them what they wanted most from the city.

“I would like the city to see this as a possibly solvable problem,” said White. “I would really like the city to stop thinking that this can’t be fixed, because until that changes, it won’t be fixed.”

Morris added, “I just want one thing: just humanity. If people can bring humanity into service, the rest would just fall into place. I think MAFS is an example of that.”

“Like, quit going out of your way to evict people, you know what I mean?” said Bone.

As we ended the day in the Benny’s parking lot, the MAFS team told me one more thing: They wanted to do a photo for Queen City Nerve in clown noses.

“Are y’all gonna bring your own?” I joked.

Apparently so. When I looked up, all four — Bone in the driver’s seat of the Dodge, Morris halfway in another car, Feldt taking off their jacket, and White taking a pull of his vape — had snuck on their respective red clown noses. I doubled over in laughter.

“Told you,” said White. “Clowns.”

NMATHER@QCNERVE.COM

Pg. 5 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

all their belongings.

“We don’t work with the police,” Morris said.

“But we’re both called to these things organizations came together to create a free pop-up sometimes … When we keep our camps clean store for displaced Charlotteans.

As the team bonded with their neighbors and we keep our camps quiet, they leave [displaced dwelling in tents, they heard more and more people] alone.” complaints about evictions.

As with many Charlotte aid groups, Tent The MAFS Clowns City evictions that occurred in August 2020 and The rest of the February 2021 were a source of frustration and fear, Sunday I spent with but they’re far from the only evictions they’ve had MAFS went smoothly to deal with. As we passed by a luxury apartment enough. Volunteers complex, Morris pointed to a bridge straddling NC checked in with Music Factory Boulevard. neighbors living in In April 2021, the North Carolina Department tents throughout the of Transportation forced about 30 people living area. under that bridge to move, citing “health and safety We restocked concerns.” remote resource Unlike the large transition that took place in outposts and took February 2021, there was no media attention on orders from people. this eviction, just the quiet displacement of dozens We finished the day at “The Wall,” a longtime of neighbors trying to find their way in the world. gathering point for displaced neighbors and aid Morris led me to the barbed wire placed under groups in Charlotte. the bridge after the eviction.

Recently renamed from Phifer Avenue to “That was such a disappointment,” she said, Montford Point Street as part of a city commission’s shaking her head. task to rename streets named after leaders of Standing next to the bridge is a Duke Energy the Confederacy and white supremacists, the facility surrounded by a wooded enclave. In 2021, eponymous wall stands just across North College some 48 people were living on that property in Street from the Mecklenburg County Homeless tents.

Resource Center.

Morris told me MAFS had an informal Under Feldt’s direction, the volunteer crew once agreement with the property owners: So long as again set up its pop-up shop.

MAFS kept the surrounding areas clean and calm, As the evening rapidly chilled, neighbors came they could continue dwelling there. to get a cup of hot coffee and chat. That’s where I That arrangement broke down in August due learned a little more about the Mutual Aid Free to escalating tensions among neighbors in the Clowns. area. When police officers showed up to issue the “It started out as a joke,” White said. “It still is, eviction, MAFS acted as an intermediary to get it’s also part of us now.” everyone safely relocated with all their belongings.

Morris explained that the concept came from With MAFS acting as a go-between, Morris said, a stereotype she noticed while working alongside “The cops never interacted with the neighbors. They houseless people. just went to their car.”

“When you serve the homeless, you’re MAFS’ approach to easing the stress of immediately seen as a saint,” she said. “I think that’s displacement is simple: When someone informs what fuels a lot of nonprofit corruption, actually. them of an eviction, the team helps the person or People start targeting the homeless to build their people affected pack up and store their belongings. own wealth. We call ourselves clowns because …

Once the evicted party finds a new location, by joking on our own self, it just humanizes us. We’re MAFS will deliver their belongings to them. MAFS just people. We’re not heroes, we’re not saints.” then cleans up the former dwelling site for the The clown trope plays into other aspects of landowner.

MAFS, as well, Morris continued.

The team acts as a go-between for displaced “We have worked an obscene amount of hours people and the authorities, typically the police and for free. That’s just clown behavior.” landowners. When mass evictions take place, they After we closed up shop at the wall, we trooped work to ensure that all parties emerge safe and with over to Benny Pennello’s for dinner and drinks. The

ARTS FEATURE HATS FOR HOME

A Charlotte Dreamer connects with his heritage through new venture

Pg. 6 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

BY KARIE SIMMONS

The American Dream at its most idealistic is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or their socioeconomic class, can attain success through hard work and determination in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone.

It may not always be attainable for marginalized groups in our country, but it’s a notion that’s inspired generations of people to come here and try; that includes the parents of Charlotte Dreamer Jorge Gonzalez.

With aspirations for a better future for their family, Gonzalez’s parents brought him to the United States from Guanajuato, Mexico, illegally in 1999.

He was 11 years old when he left his hometown and hasn’t been back since — but not by choice.

As a recipient of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Gonzalez was granted the temporary right to legally live, study and work in America as someone who entered the country illegally as a child.

However, if Gonzalez were to return to Guanajuato to visit, he wouldn’t be able to return to the U.S. As a Dreamer — a nickname for DACA recipients that came from the heretofore failed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, for which DACA was the resulting compromise — Gonzalez can travel outside the country for work, school or humanitarian reasons, but not for leisure.

Now living in Charlotte, Gonzalez told Queen City Nerve that, ever since he left Guanajuato, he has been searching for a way to bridge the distance and feel more connected to his family and Mexican culture.

His latest business venture, Bonitos Hats, is his way of doing just that.

In April 2021, Gonzalez learned his cousin, Monse, who lives in Mexico, was struggling to earn sustainable income through her practice making hand-painted jute and canvas hats — a family tradition dating back 40 to 50 years.

Eager to help, Gonzalez suggested they partner to sell the hats in the U.S. “I hadn’t seen them around, painted hats; they’re everywhere in Mexico for sure, but I had

never seen them here in the states, so I was like, why not? Let’s see what happens,” he said.

Gonzalez and his husband, Trey Klingensmith, officially launched Bonitos Hats in June 2021 with their first pop-up at NoDa Brewing. They admit they weren’t sure how the hand-painted hats, so popular in Latin culture, would be received in Charlotte. But the feedback they received at that first event put them at ease.

“We sold five and I was ecstatic,” Gonzalez said.

“At that point I was like, at least someone likes it.”

For him, Bonitos Hats has become a way to share a piece of his own cultural background while connecting to the hometown he strives to see again someday.

“It does bring a lot of memories and some sort of sentimental value to it to know that part of my culture and part of the work that I’m doing that’s also representing my culture is out there,” he said.

“These hats are part of my culture and when I see them out there it brings joy to my heart.”

Tapping into a hidden talent

A Bonitos hat’s journey begins in Mexico, where Monse makes them from canvas or jute — a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. The company also offers vegan leather and vegan suede hats, which they outsource.

Most hats arrive in Charlotte completely blank, but some come partially painted by Monse — allowing Gonzalez and Klingensmith to add any necessary finishing touches or embellishments.

At first, Klingensmith would just do the crafting styles on the vegan suede and leather hats while Gonzalez did only painting, but as word spread and volume increased, they both began taking on all roles.

Though the couple has always been creative — Gonzalez’s background is in advertising and graphic design while Klingensmith works in interior design — Bonitos Hats has helped spur entirely new aspects of their artistic abilities.

For one, Gonzalez discovered his talent for painting. He said it’s now an outlet of expression for him and a way to decompress from his full-time job at Duke Energy.

TREY KLINGENSMITH (LEFT) AND JORGE GONZALEZ AT A BONITOS POP-UP. COURTESY OF JORGE GONZALEZ

It can take him four to five days to complete one hand-painted hat, as each stage of the design can only progress after it dries. On darker colored hats, Gonzalez paints the design first in white, waits for it to dry, then adds colors on top so they pop against the background.

“And depending on how many colors we choose for a hat, that’s so many different layers and each layer has to dry to move on to the next,” Klingensmith added.

Vegan suede and vegan leather hats require special paints and can be sealed with a water repellent spray to protect them. Hand-painted jute and canvas hats are sealed with a clear acrylic

polyurethane cover so they don’t fade or smear. That last step makes them water-resistant and UV rayprotected.

“You can literally dump them in the ocean. They can get salt water on them. They won’t smear or fade,” Klingensmith said, the salesman jumping out of him.

Bonitos Hats, which translates to “beautiful hats,” offers dozens of unique designs from traditional Mexican patterns to butterflies, flowers, birds, cacti, feathers, snakes and even custom designs. Though some are more popular than others, no two hats are exactly alike.

“Because they’re handmade and hand-painted,

ARTS FEATURE customers are always going to have a little something that’s kind of unique to their own hat,” Gonzalez said. “While you will see some that are very similar and very alike, but they’re not going to be the same.”

Gonzalez and Klingensmith have come to realize that the hat often chooses its wearer.

They’ve noticed customers at their pop-ups gravitate toward what speaks to them, and have even seen people who claim they don’t wear hats change their mind once they put one on and look in the mirror.

Even if they’re truly not interested in wearing the hats, Klingensmith pointed out that they make for great wall decor. Some are currently on display at Tough Ass Crew’s art gallery in NoDa. “They are wearable pieces of art,” Klingensmith said. “That’s important, too, because we want them to see that yes, they are art, but you can wear them.

They’re fun. You don’t have to worry about messing them up.”

‘A constant battle’

COURTESY OF BONI TOS HATS

While DACA was a saving grace for Gonzalez, it’s been anything but stable.

In September 2017, the Trump administration ordered an end to DACA and pressured Congress to enact a replacement before recipients lost their protections. The move was blocked by lower courts and taken to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Trump and in favor of keeping DACA in June 2020.

On Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order reinstating DACA. Seven months later, federal judge Andrew Hanen ruled the program was illegally created and implemented after several states sued on the grounds that Obama had no authority to create DACA, as it bypassed Congress.

Under Hanen’s ruling, the government is currently barred from approving new DACA applications. However, Dreamers like Gonzalez who are already protected by the program can keep their status and apply for renewals while the case goes through the appeals process.

In the meantime, a new version of the DREAM Act passed through the House of Representatives in March 2021, but hasn’t gotten through the Senate.

Still, Gonzalez remains optimistic.

“It’s going to be a constant battle, but I think we’re getting closer,” Gonzalez said.

He is currently going through the application process for a green card, for which he is eligible thanks to his marriage, and in the meantime he is doing what he can to share and connect with his Mexican heritage and Latin culture through Bonitos Hats.

Gonzalez pointed out that many of their handpainted designs reflect cultural aspects like the Aztec calendar and the monarch butterfly — a spiritual symbol used during Day of the Dead celebrations that is believed to represent the souls of ancestors returning to bring comfort to loved ones.

In that way, Bonitos Hats serves to celebrate and teach others about Latin culture. For Gonzalez, it helps him bridge the distance and feel just a bit closer to his Mexican family.

And he’s not alone.

Gonzalez recalled selling Bonitos hats at a Day of the Dead festival at Camp North End in 2021. He said people came up to his booth and thanked him, saying the hand-painted hats reminded them of home.

“It’s so nice to see that it brings a little joy to their heart and maybe they’re in the same situation as I am, I don’t know,” he said, “and to be able to provide that little piece of their culture and their country is amazing to me.”

KSIMMONS@QCNERVE.COM

$10

New client special

Live in alignment with your Purpose!

www.scozonetarot.us

Pg. 7 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

Gonzalez and Klingensmith launched Bonitos Hats with a goal to help Monse make ends meet in Mexico and provide for her family as a single mother.

They began selling the hats through wordof-mouth, participating in pop-ups in Charlotte, Asheville, Charleston, Raleigh, Durham and Winston-Salem. Now they ship all over the world through their online store and have even floated the idea of a brick-and-mortar location.

“We didn’t have a plan when we started this, honestly, and we currently don’t,” Gonzalez said.

“We’re just kind of riding that wave.”

Though he’s happy to be helping his extended family through Bonitos Hats, he still feels a tinge of guilt from not being able to visit them in Mexico due to his DACA status.

The U.S. is home to approximately 700,000 Dreamers who, like Gonzalez, are stuck in temporary legal status limbo. That’s because DACA, unlike the proposed DREAM Act, does not provide a path to citizenship for recipients.

The DREAM Act is a bipartisan legislative proposal to grant permanent legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and went to school here.

Several versions of the bill have been introduced in Congress since 2001, but none have ever passed.

BONITOS HATS ARE HANGING IN GALLERY WALLS AND ON HEADS ALL OVER TOWN.

ARTS FEATURE FAVOR THE BOLD

Fortune Feimster discusses her rise to success before sold-out homecoming

BY KARIE SIMMONS

The last time Fortune Feimster performed in Charlotte, she filmed her 2020 Netflix special Sweet & Salty. During the show, the Belmont-raised comedian and actor cracked jokes about herself, her family and her Southern upbringing, using true stories to walk the audience through her journey to queer discovery.

She also introduced us to her alter-ego, Brenda, an exasperated housewife from the South who loves turquoise, and Brenda’s husband Tim, who drives her up the wall more often than not.

Two years, a marriage and a pandemic later, Feimster returned to Charlotte on Feb. 5 and 6 to host three sold-out performances at the Knight Theater as part of her national 2 Sweet 2 Salty tour.

During her Saturday set, Feimster had the audience roaring with stories of elementary school in the ’80s, her rollercoaster of an engagement, how she realized she’s not a “butch” lesbian, and a health scare for her dog, Biggie, who made an appearance on stage.

In the lead-up to her homecoming shows, Feimster spoke with Queen City Nerve about how she looks back on her Belmont childhood, how she views her success and whether the love she expressed for Hooters in her Netflix special still stands.

Q

Queen City Nerve: In Sweet & Salty you poke a lot of fun at growing up in the South and your childhood living in Belmont. Do you look back fondly on that time, and how do you think it shaped you?

Fortune Feimster: Oh, yeah, for sure. Like every kid, it’s difficult when you don’t really know who you are, and it takes a lot of getting it wrong before you get it right. So that certainly came with its challenges, but I think that would have happened anywhere. But I was lucky to be from a small town where people cared about me and knew me, knew my family, and it’s still a place where I love to visit, and I get a lot of support when I go home. So I’m very proud of my little town and just being from there.

And that’s where I learned how to tell stories by watching other people. I feel like Southerners are very animated and love to sort of hold court at family dinners or whatnot. And you couldn’t help but pick that up, being around it your whole life.

A

Q A

Pg. 8 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

This character you play on stage and on social media, Brenda, is she based on somebody you knew growing up?

It’s kind of like five different people rolled into one. It’s just sort of like bits and pieces of different people I knew, people that you see kind of trying to hold it together at home. Their hands are full with their kids and the husband is not helping out very much, and that sort of love-hate relationship, I always thought that was pretty hilarious.

It’s fun to play with the jewelry, the turquoise, the clothes, and it’s sort of poking fun at even my own mom, who loves lots of signs like “Live, Love, Laugh” and all that stuff. And it feels like that character has really resonated with people because they have someone in their life who’s like that, too, or they’re that person themselves.

Q A

I will say, when you do the voice, you sound exactly like my Aunt Ginny, like to a T. She also loves you.

Oh, that’s so funny. Yeah. I love it when ladies come up to me and they go, “My husband’s name is Tim,” and I go, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” because now their wives are always going, “Timmmm.”

FORTUNE FEIMSTER THANKS THE CROWD AFTER HER SHOW AT THE KNIGHT THEATER. PHOTO BY TREVOR SCOT T

Q A

So you said that you still visit the area — that you come back to Belmont — do you ever go into Charlotte? And did you come here often growing up?

Well, when I was growing up, even though Charlotte is 30 minutes away, it seemed like a whole other land, a whole other place. It was way more sophisticated than my little hometown. We would always go into Charlotte for various things. Like my family always had restaurants there that they loved, like the Open Kitchen, Barbecue King, all these old-school joints that my grandmother went to back in the day.

We’d venture into Charlotte for that and obviously to fly, we used the airport. So I feel like we’re closer to the airport than most Charlotte people. And so, yeah, I would visit, but it wasn’t until I got older that I could really start appreciating it for the different places that they have there. The food scene has gotten way cooler and there’s some really neat places there, so I like coming back and doing shows there because then I get to sort of relearn Charlotte as an adult.

Q A

You talked about your struggle transitioning to a gluten-free diet in your special. Did you stick with it to now?

The pandemic has really shifted a lot of things for a lot of people, and that was certainly one of them. I was doing so good, and we were on such a good roll, and then the world shut down, and the last thing you want to be is gluten-free in a pandemic. All that stuff kind of went out the window. So I need to start reeling it in again.

ARTS FEATURE

Q A

Are you planning on going to any Charlotte restaurants or any hot spots that anyone has told you to check out while you’re here?

I’m currently in Asheville doing a show. I got so many recommendations for Asheville that I feel like not as many for Charlotte. So I got to ask people where the places are to go. Usually we like to order from a local restaurant between shows. We’ll have something on Saturday, and then we might go somewhere on Sunday before the show. So I have to figure out where the good spots are down by the theater.

Q A

Does playing shows in Charlotte hold more meaning to you than playing shows in other cities, or is it just like anywhere in North Carolina evokes this feeling?

I definitely feel like a special connection in the Charlotte shows and then the Durham and Raleigh shows. Charlotte ends up having a lot of people that I grew up with, a lot of people from my hometown end up coming, so that’s really cool because a lot of those people have known me my whole life and they know my family.

And since I talk a lot about both of those things and myself as a kid and my family, I feel like it resonates a lot more with those audiences because they know them to be true. Durham and Raleigh, I went to school in Raleigh, so that tends to be a lot of college friends who knew me in that stage of my life. So that’s fun, sharing stories with them. But yeah, I definitely have a special connection, and those shows end up being really wild and fun, and I love it.

Q A

A lot of your comedy comes from your personal life, like you said. I know you got married in fall 2020. How has married life shaped your new material for 2 Sweet 2 Salty?

I definitely pick up where the last special left off, and I talk a little bit more about my relationship and some background as far as the next step that we took in our relationship as far as getting engaged and getting married. I share the decisions that we have to make as dog parents and just how we are as adults.

You definitely see where I’m at in life now. So I like that sort of continuous journey, and it’s been fun. I don’t know. I’m sharing things about myself that people might not know or might not assume.

So that’s been fun, just sort of peeling back more layers. So yeah, it’s been a really fun hour to tour with.

Q

A

It’s always the shy ones, isn’t it?

Well, people forget that stand-up is a lot about observations. If you’re the one talking all the time, you’re not really taking everybody else in.

In your special, as you mentioned just now, you talked about not realizing that you were gay until after college. Did you feel so suppressed when you lived in the smalltown South that you didn’t consider it, or was it something else?

It was more of a just not knowing. It seems like crazy now to say that you just didn’t know. But I kind of touched on that, too, where it wasn’t as prevalent. I didn’t know any gay people. I didn’t see it represented on television that much or movies. So I just didn’t know even what it — not that I didn’t know what it was — but I just didn’t know how it applied to me.

I think the biggest thing was that I knew something was missing in my life. Like, I felt this like missing puzzle piece is the best way I can describe it. I knew I wasn’t connecting with guys in the way that my friends were, but really, you kind of just put it on yourself. Like you just sort of assume that you’ve done something wrong or you’re not appealing, so that chips away at your self-esteem, certainly, when you’re not the object of someone’s affection in that way.

Once you come out and you realize that was the thing that was missing, there’s this peace that comes with this and you’re just elated, like it’s not me. This was the thing that was missing.

And I feel like since coming out, I’ve had this joy of knowing that missing piece filled that part of me that was missing. So I definitely think that contributed a lot to just my happiness and feeling better about myself.

A

Q A

Who do you think you would be if you never left Belmont? Would you be Brenda?

It’s hard to say. I’ve been in LA almost as long as I was in Belmont. I would imagine I would be, not Brenda — I would have hopefully realized I was gay — but I’m not sure what my profession would have been. I don’t think I would have been able to do comedy there, but hopefully I would have been doing something I enjoy and still making people laugh.

Q A

Selling out three shows in a weekend in Charlotte is a big deal. How do you feel about coming back to the city knowing you have this hometown support?

It’s incredible. When I filmed my Netflix special, I had only done a handful of theaters in my career. I was still a club comic, and we had two shows that we had to fill — I want to say 600 seats each show.

And I remember going, “Oh, man, I hope we can fill these theaters.” It seemed like a daunting thing at the time and so to be coming home and doing three shows — I think it’s like 3,500 people or something — I mean, it’s crazy, and it’s such a cool testament to the special and how it seems to resonate with people in the last two years.

And it allowed me the opportunity to move to theaters, and I’ve been all over the country, and it’s still going until the summer, and the turnout has just been blowing my mind. I had 2,400 people in Oklahoma last weekend and 2,100 people in St. Louis.

You just don’t expect that someone like me from a town of 9,000 [to] 10,000 people would somehow be on people’s radar like this. But that’s why I’m so grateful for Netflix and giving me that platform and allowing me to tell the stories that hopefully people found relatable in their own way.

Q A

So after the show, are y’all going to Hooters?

You never know. It’s certainly been a trip seeing all these people come to the shows in their own homemade Hooters shirts. It’s just been a hilarious thing to watch.

KSIMMONS@QCNERVE.COM Pg. 9 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

So you’re talking about things that people might not know about you, and now you’re coming back to Charlotte to perform, potentially in front of people you grew up with. How would you say you’ve changed since leaving Belmont, and in what ways are you the same Fortune they knew?

I would think I’ve changed a lot since living there. I left Belmont when I was 18, went to college and would come home here and there. But those college years were very much like Raleigh years, and then I moved away at 22 out of North Carolina.

So, I would say I’ve changed a lot in that, one, I didn’t know I was gay then, so that’s the big change. I’ve grown up. I’ve become this sort of adult version of myself and met someone and I certainly think I’ve matured, or I hope I have, but still sort of maintain that silliness and positivity that people knew me for.

I think that’s kind of been with me my whole life. I would think if you ask people growing up, they would have probably said I was quiet sometimes, but then other times I would sort of have this burst of confidence and make people laugh and be silly. So they’re probably seeing a more confident version of myself, too, because to some people’s surprise, I was kind of shy back in the day.

So as a stand up, at least when you’re on stage, you’re not as shy.

Q A Q

THU2/10

THE OTHER FAVORITES

“Rebel thrown from his nag/ Face down and drowned in the shallows/ Whose blood dyed your flag/ Whose hand paved the road to the gallows?” Joshua Lee Turner and Carson McKee sing on the title track to The Other Favorites’ latest album Unamericana. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriters and acoustic guitarists, who met while both were attending grade school in Charlotte, craft indie-folk gems that boast virtuosic guitar work, mystic lyricism and tight yet airy harmonies. Their album’s songs, released as a series of live performance videos, project an air of magical melancholy laced with harrowing imagery and laid-back gravitas.

More: $20; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.; Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave.; visulite.com THE OTHER FAVORITES Photo by Kent Meister

SAT2/12

HARRIET TUBMAN SOLO PERFORMACE AND WORKSHOP

In1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and passed into legend. Tubman is brought to life by teaching artist and author Carlo L’Chelle Dawson for this workshop, which examines Tubman’s role with The Underground Railroad, through which she led enslaved people to freedom while carrying a bounty on her head. Activities include a journey on The Underground Railroad, which uses maps and riddles to illuminate Tubman’s role as a Union spy; a storytelling experience documenting Tubman’s life from young girl to women’s suffrage activist; and an interactive review incorporating story cloths and freedom quilts.

More: $10; Feb. 12, 12 p.m.; Gantt Center, 551 S. Tryon St.; ganttcenter.org

HARRIET TUBMAN WORKSHOP Courtesy of Carlo L’Chelle Dawson

Pg. 10 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

2/10

2/12

SAT2/12

SUN2/13

CUPID’S UNDIE RUN

CLASSIC BLACK CINEMA: ‘BUCK AND THE PREACHER’

A few days shy of Valentine’s Day, a pack of runners in their undies gather to support those affected by NF, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body and affects one in every 3,000 births. Though underwear is the required garb for this quasi-athletic charity event, participants are advised to keep it PG-13, so nudists and those nostalgic for the 1970’s streaking craze should look elsewhere. The event kicks off with drinking and dancing, followed by a “brief” run, then a big party (more drinking and dancing, basically).

More: $45; Feb. 12, 12 p.m.; The Union, 222 E. Bland St.; my.cupids.org/cur/city/charlotte

Buck and the Preacher is not the magnificent Sidney Poitier’s first western — that honor goes to the grim and gory 1966 Apache uprising oater Duel at Diablo — but it is Poitier’s directing debut. Like many westerns of its time, this 1972 release is revisionist, but it’s a revision long overdue. Instead of a lily-white Hollywood western, this amiable and frequently comic adventure pits Poitier’s former buffalo soldier against racist bounty hunters. As a profane and bogus preacher, Poitier’s friend Harry Belafonte steals the show, but that was probably the director’s intent all along.

More: $7-$9; Feb. 13, 2 p.m.; Gantt Center, 551 S. Tryon St.; ganttcenter.org

WED 2/16

WED 2/16

VHS POTLUCK

MONACHOPSIS, KENMUJO, MOVING BOXES, JANUARYKNIFE

Ninjas, the covert and mercenary agents of feudal Japan, performed deadly duties beneath the honor of samurai warriors. Flash forward six centuries, and ninjas became a reliable action movie trope, blackclad assassins for justly forgotten ’80s stars like Michael Dudikoff to swat away like flies. Ninjas are also the theme for February’s VHS Potluck at VisArt Video. This is the drill: Everybody brings an actual VHS tape or two of a ninja movie to the party. Then they and their fellow attendees, all like-minded cinéastes (or newbs, that’s fine too), vote for a double feature comprised of ninja movies no one in the audience has already seen.

More: $5 donation; Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m.; VisArt Video, 3104 Eastway Dr.; visartvideo.org/events

Founded in Myrtle Beach, Monachopsis now parlays it’s moody and pensive progressive indie rock from Charlotte. A one-man-band solo project by Rita’s Gift drummer Brian Gryder, Charlotte act Januaryknife makes rhythmic, hard-to-pigeonhole synth rock, incorporating live drumming, distorted vocoder and triggered loops. The evening of outsider music is capped with Tokyo rock god Kenmujo. As one half of Japanese-American duo Ken South Rock, Kenmujo supplies the demonic ululating wails that weave through that band’s galloping and grimy hard rock, a welcome throwback to 1960s Japanese monsters of psychedelia Flower Travelin’ Band.

More: $8; February 16, 8 p.m.; The Milestone, 400 Tuckaseegee Rd.; themilestone.club

THU2/17 AUTUMN RAINWATER, AXNT, CELESTE MOONCHILD, SAINT FLOYD

AUTUMN RAINWATER Promo photo

After a relatively chill electronica-laced sojourn with her Cloudy EP in 2020, Autumn Rainwater returned to form with her electric album Lowkey Highkey in August 2021. Through a variety of styles and genres, Rainwater’s assured vocals remain a constant on the album, deploying elastic phrasing that snaps ahead or drops back behind the beat. A Charlotte native, Rainwater pays tribute to her hometown, including contributions from Queen City talent: Dexter Jordan lends his smooth vocals to “Take Me Home,” Cuzo Key raps on “What You On?” and Lute weighs in on “Baecation.”

More: $10; Feb. 17, 10 p.m.; Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St.; snugrock.com

SAT2/19 ALTON BROWN: BEYOND THE EATS

In America, where second acts include disgraced failed fascists warbling on The Masked Singer, Alton Brown is an outlier. After a respectable run shooting music videos for bands like REM, Brown embarked on a new career as an extreme foodie. The food show presenter, chef, author, actor, cinematographer, and musician has hosted or appeared on Iron Chef, Feasting on Asphalt, Cutthroat Kitchen and more. His stage show includes comedy, music, highly unusual cooking demos, and potentially dangerous sciencegone-astray. When this man-of-many-acts asks for audience volunteers, consider the proposition carefully.

More: $34.50 and up; Feb. 19, 8 p.m.; Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org ALTON BROWN Courtesy of Blumenthal Arts

2/17

2/19

FEB 2/11-2/13 FEB 2/15-2/20

‘GET BACK: THE ROOFTOP CONCERT’

2/11-2/13

‘WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME’

Is the Constitution the sacred text of American government, or is it a document devised to protect wealthy men and their property — which once included other human beings — from an intrusive government? Heidi Schreck’s Tony-nominated play What the Constitution Means to Me delves into this dichotomy. Schreck slyly structures her play as an off-the-cuff monologue, alternating between her present-day self and her enthusiastic 15-year-old debate team persona. In the process she raises this question: Do we fight to fix our deeply flawed democracy or rip it up and start again?

More: $20 and up; Feb. 15-20; Knight Theater, 430 S. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org

‘WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME’ Photo by Walter McBride

2/15-2/20

Pg. 11 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

‘GET BACK: THE ROOFTOP CONCERT’ Film still

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson sifted through 60-plus hours of footage to craft the acclaimed The Beatles: Get Back documentary series. This reformatted-for-IMAX Rooftop Concert is the highlight of that troubled shoot, a spectacular performance which marked the last time The Beatles ever played together, and a perfect selection for the return of Discovery Place’s Accenture IMAX® Dome Theatre. Closed since March 2020, the theater has undergone massive renovations, most notably an upgrade to next-generation laser technology designed for 180-degree domed theatre environments.

More: $20-$22; Feb. 11-13, 2 p.m. & 6 p.m.; Discovery Place Science, 301 N Tryon St.; science.discoveryplace.org

MUSIC FEATURE A NEW LEAF

Davey Blackburn returns to music after a harrowing family ordeal

Pg. 12 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

BY PAT MORAN

Davey Blackburn has been on hiatus from the Charlotte music scene for three long years. That might not seem like much, but it’s quite a span for one of the city’s most inventive, inquisitive and open-minded musicians. Now he has readied his return.

Through the harsh yet vulnerable hardcore of Autumn 80, the hard-hitting math rock of Calabi Yau, the experimental avant-noise of Moenda, and his current fascination with Afro-Brazilian rhythms that has manifested in Latin-flavored psychedelic pop rock outfits Patabamba and Chócala, drummer, percussionist and producer Blackburn has consistently pushed musical and rhythmic boundaries, and his presence in the Queen City’s creative life has been sorely missed.

Now Blackburn is back with his solo album, surprisingly a first for the wide-ranging artist. The debut, titled Curiosidades de Bombrile, is scheduled to drop on Feb. 11 on Bandcamp and the usual streaming platforms. The album offers 12 propulsive and hypnotic songs comprised of multi-tracked shape-shifting rhythms that snake, slalom and bubble under Blackburn’s layered and frequently repetitive vocals.

Despite the multi-tracking, Blackburn says everything on the album is played all the way through, with no overdubs dropped in to correct anything — what the music industry refers to as “punching in.”

“You can’t play a metronome with this stuff because it fluctuates,” Blackburn says of the album’s organic rhythms. “Everything is layered and played all the way through, each instrument. The only thing I did after the fact was vocals.”

Blackburn has been working on these tracks for more than 10 years, but he left them untouched for most of his three-year exile from music, a hiatus inspired by an ordeal that goes well beyond the average pandemic-induced stress we’ve all experienced. In October 2019, his son and only child, Cuauthy, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 10.

“I stopped thinking about music and everything because he was sick,” Blackburn says. During that time, Blackburn and his wife, Maria Elosia, concentrated on the care and treatment of their son,

DAVEY BLACKBURN ON THE DRUMS, HIS ORIGINAL INSTRUMENT.

whose name is a tribute to Maria Elosia’s Mexican American heritage. It derives from the last Aztec ruler, Cuauhtémoc, and means “descending eagle.”

Cuauthy’s cancer is in remission now, and the prognosis is good, Blackburn says.

“He still has treatments, and he still has some rough days, but he’s back in school. We still have a long road ahead with this, but he’s on the other side of it.”

As Cuauthy’s health improved and the family’s three-year long ordeal gave way to a sense of normalcy, Blackburn started thinking about music again. He returned to the tracks he started recording in 2010 with renewed vigor and sharpened insight.

“I started listening to the songs again, and … remixing them on my lunch break in my truck, bouncing them back between the stereo in the truck and the headphones,” Blackburn says.

The truck-turned-studio was necessary, because Blackburn didn’t want the noise of the remixing process to disturb Cuauthy. Once the tracks were mixed to his satisfaction, Blackburn also recorded his vocals in the truck.

While it’s tempting to ascribe to these lyrics the heightened clarity that comes to many after enduring a life-or-death ordeal, the often simple and celebratory words possess the child-like ability to cut to the quick.

With that interpretation in mind, the album is revealed as a compendium of the things that matter most to Blackburn: his family, plants and animals, and favorite people and places. As such, the album plays like an open diary of Blackburn’s life, dominated by observations of the natural world.

The polyrhythmic and enchanting music is influenced by another touchstone in Blackburn’s life: the Afro-Brazilian martial art form capoeira.

“I’ve heard a lot of people describing it as dance fighting,” Blackburn offers.

It is that and so much more, he maintains.

In modern times, the practice has evolved into a supportive community that presents events that illustrate and explain the discipline and its traditions.

“The music is what really attracted me to it,” Blackburn says. “I like the physical aspect of

PHOTO BY DANIEL COSTON

[capoeira], but the music was so intriguing and interesting.”

The music that accompanies capoeira is distinctive, Blackburn explains, because of the unique sounds and rhythms made by the instruments involved: the berimbau, a bow-like instrument with an open gourd that acts as an amplifier; the atabaques, which are congas; and the pandeiros, which resemble tambourines.

As a drummer, Blackburn took a deep dive into the music, learning how to play the traditional rhythms. He befriended the Brazilian capoeira master Mestre Esquilo (Bruno Melo) and ultimately recorded, engineered and mixed the mestre’s 2013 album Toque o Tambor, for which Blackburn wrote the suitable funky track “Funkeira.”

In addition to informing the music of Blackburn’s album, capoeira also inspired the project’s name: Curiosidades de Bombrile.

“Bombrile is a nickname that was given to me as an unofficial apelido,” Blackburn says. An apelido is a capoeira nickname, which he earned due to his

MUSIC FEATURE characteristic hair style, a shaggy but sturdy mop that bears resemblance to a Brazilian company’s Brillo-like soap pad, Bombrile.

On Curiosidades de Bombrile, the instrumental “Mestre forgot my apelido” rides oscillating metallic percussion that ping-pongs like a crazy cuckoo clock. The tune plays like the British post-punk band Wire had supped on psychedelic Peruvian cumbias and fractured disco. It serves as a musical remembrance of Blackburn’s apelido, and how it remains “unofficial.”

The album’s title encompasses Blackburn’s curiosity about different cultures and the music they create, and being inspired to learn more about them, Blackburn explains.

The Curiosidades de Bombrile are the things that interest, fascinate, inspire and animate Blackburn.

A life in rhythm

THREE ATABAQUES (FOREGROUND) AND THREE BERIMBAUS.

The way of capoeira

“In Moenda, I wanted to draw influences from other places,” Blackburn says. This revived exploratory impulse coincided with his discovery of capoeira. Blackburn recalls attending a capoeira event in Charlotte featuring an instructor. Shortly thereafter, he joined a group of people interested in the practice, which began meeting in 2008.

Blackburn also learned about the history of the practice.

According to tradition, capoeira, which contains elements of dance, acrobatics and music, began as fighting training for enslaved Africans in Brazil during the colonial period. Capoeira became a necessity for unarmed escaped slaves, equipping them with the survival tools necessary to evade capture by armed and mounted colonial agents. “The training was disguised as a dance so [the oppressors] wouldn’t know what they were doing,” Blackburn says.

PHOTO BY DAVEY BLACKBURN

In the meantime, Blackburn slowly moved into recording and producing. After getting a Fostex 4-track recorder from a friend, Blackburn acquired more gear and began recording capoeira music and events at Moenda’s practice space at Noda Studios.

In 2010, he also started working on the tracks that would become Curiosidades de Bombrile more than a decade later.

In March 2011, capoeira master Mestre Esquilo came from Brazil to teach the class Blackburn and his wife were attending. In 2012, Blackburn started working with the master on his Toque o Tambor album.

Riding a pinwheeling bristling knot of percussive instruments, “De lado a lado y de regresso” on Curiosidades de Bombrile is a remembrance of those sessions working with Mestre Esquilo, who eventually returned to Brazil.

“The title means side by side, how certain

Pg. 13 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

Growing up in Iron Station, about 30 miles northwest of Charlotte in Lincoln County, Blackburn began to learn about music outside the rock and pop norms through dumpster diving with his dad.

One day on a trip to the Queen City, Blackburn scored three albums by British-Nigerian R&B singer Sade in a bin behind a record store.

“There was something different about that,” Blackburn says. “There’s a lot of percussion in that band.”

In sixth grade, Blackburn got into skateboarding.

The pastime became a gateway to punk rock when Blackburn found a mixtape featuring Fugazi, Dead Milkmen, Minute Men and Subhumans at a skate park.

“I still have that tape,” he says.

A teacher in his freshman year at East Lincoln High School kicked off Blackburn’s passion for horticulture, leading a class that cultivated his longtime affinity for plants and wildlife and inspired his later studies and career.

In 1993, Blackburn joined his first band, punk outfit Limousine, as the drummer. Then, with friends Craig Friday and Mark Boles, Blackburn formed Autumn 80. The trio, which Blackburn describes as melancholy post-punk, with screaming vocals, and harsh, fast drumming, marked a rite of passage when it played a gig at The Milestone Club in August 1995.

The band continued while Blackburn attended Haywood Community College in Clyde, NC, to study dendrology, silviculture and forestry. He recalls driving from his home in Maggie Valley to Greensboro to practice with the band and play gigs.

While at college, Blackburn fell in love with Latin

artists like Hector Lavoe and Willie Colón. He also devoured the fabled Fania Records catalog.

Unfortunately, Blackburn had to discontinue his studies at Haywood. He moved back home to become live-in caretaker for his Alzheimer’s-afflicted greatgrandmother. Even though Blackburn had to leave college without a degree, his passion for horticulture and forestry paid off. He took jobs in the field and, as he accrued work experience, his career blossomed. He landed a position at Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens, then later moved on to become a horticulturalist at Cowan’s Ford Country Club on Lake Norman.

For the past 18 years, Blackburn, who is now 45, has been working at a botanical garden on a private estate in the Charlotte area. In the process he has earned a Master Gardener Certification and a Master Naturalist Certification.

Blackburn’s love of animals and plants as well as his fascination with horticulture surface on Curiosidades de Bombrile. With ratcheting, slapping percussion and layered voices like a demonic obeah, “No Fins No Feathers” is Blackburn’s statement about the hypocritical ways humans use animal’s bodies as products.

“It’s [also] about animal mutilation with dogs, like how they clip the ears and they cut the tails just to create an esthetic that humans want to see,” Blackburn says. Riding a trancey, chugging stomp with wind-chime tintinnabulations, “Colugo a Go Go” is a light-hearted reminder that the arboreal flying colugo is mistakenly called a flying lemur, when it’s not a lemur at all. Similarly, the reverberating “Kyndaisapoh (Smooth Rolling Isopod),” is an appreciation of the simple roly poly or pill bug.

Suggesting Carnival in Rio punctuated with needle-sharp African highlife guitar-like hits, “Motion Matrix / Matriz de movimento” is about floral arrangement.

After a stint in the band Shortround, Blackburn moved to Charlotte, where he formed Calabi Yau with Bo White and Robin Doermann. The band played up and down the east coast and undertook a tour of the U.S. It was at a Calabi Yau show at Charlotte venue The Room that Blackburn met Maria Elosia. On Aug. 2, 2007, Blackburn proposed to Maria Elosia on a beach at Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. Exactly one year later, the two were married in Key West, on a beach where the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean meet.

Meanwhile, in Charlotte. Blackburn started experimenting with different rhythm patterns and unfamiliar instruments. In 2009, he launched Moenda with Ross Wilibanks, Robin Doermann, Steven Piker and Jeremy Fisher.

Pg. 14 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

MUSIC FEATURE all stopped. Blackburn had been busy with music prior to his son’s diagnosis, but with Cuauthy’s illness, he put all creative projects on hold.

“I tried not to think about it,” Blackburn says.

After a few years, as Cuauthy started feeling better, music slowly reentered Blackburn’s life.

On Curiosidades de ... AKA BOMBRILE. Bombrile, amid a mass of ethereal voices, like fleeting spirits, the Blackburn family’s situation is perhaps unconsciously reflected on the song “Orange to PHOTO BY MARIA ELOISA BLACKBURN DAVEY BLACKBURN... orange to red rays.”

“That one is about things run in parallels,” Blackburn says.” a plant called Tithonia rotundifolia, which is a Though Blackburn carries complete respect for Mexican sunflower,” Blackburn says. capoeira, he wanted to do something different with He remembers his wife getting seeds for the the new album. sunflowers from Mexico, then sowing those seeds “I wanted to borrow things from it in order in the Blackburns’ garden a year after Cuauthy was to realize a sound that’s in my mind,” Blackburn diagnosed. While the song simply describes the says. “I thought capoeira was a really cool thing plant — how tall it gets and its color and florescence to incorporate [into] the music scene in Charlotte. — the lyrics suggest hope with the coming blooms, Having a relationship with Mestre Esquilo like I did, from summer to midsummer: it made me feel like I could borrow from different “Orange to orange to red rays an orange yellow things and not appropriate them.” disc blooms from midsummer to fall...”

The cross pollination between Brazilian culture and Similarly, the ritualistic trance rhythms of Queen City music became a springboard for events like “Marcescent” suggest renewal and hope. The Latin Night in Plaza Midwood, which held its inaugural title comes from a characteristic of plants, mainly concert on Jan. 9, 2016, plus annual capoeira Batizado deciduous trees. They hold onto the season’s events that often coincided with the yearly Night in Rio previous leaves to protect new leaf buds that are celebration at Neighborhood Theatre in NoDa. developing underneath.

By this time, Blackburn was involved with the “Then, when the new ones push through in the International Capoeira School and North Carolina spring, the old leaves finally fall off,” Blackburn says.

Brazilian Arts Project, as well as playing with Bo White As Cuauthy started to feel better, Blackburn y su Orquestra. As Moenda wound down, he launched returned to the songs he had set aside. For years he Patabamba in 2015 with Patrick O’Boyle and siblings had been unsure what to do with them vocally. He Claudio and Liza Ortiz.That same year, he helped start started listening to them in a different way.

Don Telling’s Island Mysteries (DTIM) with White, Tyler “It’s like they were all brand new to me,” Baum, Scott Thompson and Brent Bagwell.

Blackburn says. “After taking a break from music In 2017, Patabama gave way to Chócala with altogether — and then coming back to them, the Michael Anderson joining Blackburn, and Claudio vocals just came. I was able to put in what I think and Liza Ortiz. was going to be there all along.”

DTIM ceased in 2018. Then in October 2019, it PMORAN @QCNERVE.COM

PHOTO BY BRIAN BT T WI T T Y

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL Milton Suggs (Stage Door Theater)

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19

The Menders w/ Vive Le Fox (Snug Harbor)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

The Quasi Kings w/ Rockstead, Zach Fowler (Evening Muse) The Abbey Elmore Band w/ Aaron Chance Wilson (Petra’s) Carolina Creepshow presents Creepchella (Snug Harbor)

OPEN MIC

DOAP Hip-Hop Open Mic (Crown Station) Open Mic Night w/ Chase & Aleeia “Sug” Bolton Brown (Tommy’s Pub)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters w/ Vintage Harmonic Symphony (Neighborhood Theatre) The Other Favorites (Visulite Theatre)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

One Moment in Time (Whitney Houston tribute) (Middle C Jazz)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ MEMBA w/ Fabian Muzur (SERJ)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill) Scowl Brow (Neighborhood Theatre) Pickwick Commons w/ LUCA (Skylark Social Club) Paint Fumes w/ Tetanus, Celebrity Death Slot Machine, Ink Swell, DJ Nasty D (Snug Harbor) Anchor Detail w/ The Donner Deads, Middleasia (Tommy’s Pub) Rev On (Foreigner tribute) Amos’ Southend Harvest Moon (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tribute) (Visulite Theatre)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Lil Skritt w/ Rashaddre, Cosmic Guest (The Milestone)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

Charlotte Symphony presents Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ (Belk Theater) Gerald Albright (Middle C Jazz) Andrea Bocelli (Spectrum Center)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA Josh Abbott Band (Coyote Joe’s)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

DJ Marvy Marv: Rhythm Station ’80s Vibes (Crown Station)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC Jim Avett (Evening Muse) Lily Hiatt (Free Range Brewing)

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

The Missing Finger (Crown Station) Easy Honey w/ Arson Daily (Evening Muse) Valentine Base feat. Hardcore Lounge, Mary Massie Band, Moa (Petra’s)

Hey RICHARD, Saul Seibert from Boo Hag w/ Darby Wilcox, Terpsichore Raqs, Green Life (Skylark Social Club) Ben Gatlin Band (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar) Big Empty (Stone Temple Pilots tribute) w/ BADMOTORFINGER (Soundgarden tribute) (Amos’Southend)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

AmirSaysNothing w/ Lord JahMonte Ogbon, Nige Hood, Psykof (The Milestone) The Hamiltones w/ Fannie Mae, Ahji (Neighborhood Theatre)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

Charlotte Symphony presents Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ (Belk Theater) Noel Friedline & Maria Howell: Love Letters from Middle C (Middle C Jazz)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ DJ Smitty (Crown Station) Aphrodite (SERJ)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC Matt Walden w/ Annelle Staal (Evening Muse) Elora Dash (Primal Brewery) Greg Steinfeld (Primal Brewery)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC David Childers (Free Range Brewing)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL

Noel Friedline & Maria Howell: Love Letters from Middle C (Middle C Jazz)

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14 JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL

Conn/Davis Jazz Duo (Crown Station) Bill Hanna Legazy Jazz Session (Petra’s)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC

Songs for Lovers: A Fundraiser for Tosco Music (Booth Playhouse)

OPEN MIC

Find Your Muse Open Mic (Evening Muse)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

William Hinson Band w/ Kate Yeager (Evening Muse) Sad Park w/ The Groove Skeletons, Jackson Fig, Kevin Goodwin (The Milestone) The Cryptics w/ The Felons, Sunday Boxing, Harriet RIP (Skylark Social Club)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ Cosmic Jam (Crown Station) Dillon Francis w/ Yung Gravy Sugar (The Fillmore)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL Black Violin (Belk Theater)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC

David Childers w/ Christopher PK Chaney (Tommy’s Pub)

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Clairo w/ Arlo Parks (The Fillmore) Monachopsis w/ Ken Mujo, January Knife, Moving Boxes (The Milestone) Sun June w/ Daphne Tunes (Neighborhood Theatre) The Menders w/ Evergone (Snug Harbor)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC

Jill Sobule w/ Jess Klein (Evening Muse)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ Dua Lipa (Spectrum Center)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Dry Reef w/ Bums Lie (Evening Muse) NeverFall w/ No Coffin, Written in Gray, Spite House, Morganton (The Milestone)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

Autumn Rainwater w/ Axnt, Celeste Moonchild, Saint Floyd (Snug Harbor)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL Sol Fusion Band (Middle C Jazz)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC

Carolina Songwriters Showcase feat. Jamie Kay, Shannon Lee, Brew Davis, David Childers

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

Benny Benassi (World Nightclub)

OPEN MIC

DOAP Hip-Hop Open Mic (Crown Station) Open Mic Night w/ Chase & Aleeia “Sug” Bolton Brown (Tommy’s Pub)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill) Frute w/ By George, The Knotty Gs (Neighborhood Theatre) The Jay Van Raalte Band (Smokey Joes Cafe & Bar)

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Elvie Shane w/ Frank Ray (Coyote Joe’s) Pony Bradshaw (Evening Muse) Elonzo Wesley w/ The Pinkerton Raid, Darby Wilcox & the Peepshow (Petra’s) Jason Moss and the Hosses w/ Barnyard Stompers, Duncan Morrow (Skylark Social Club)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ

You Need To Slow Down: Taylor Swift Dance Party (Amos’ Southend) Reflexions Dark Wave & New Wave Dance Party w/ DJ Velvetine & DJ Marvin Lynch (Tommy’s Pub)

Altered Vision w/ Rough Dreams, Screaming Phnatoms, The Dirty Low Down, Duckbeak (The Milestone) Brian Fallon & the Howling Weather w/ Worriers, Hurry (Neighborhood Theatre) So Called Natives w/ Messy Stains, Mercury Dimes (Skylark Social Club) The Business People w/ Wine Pride, Raygun Superstar (Snug Harbor) Van Huskins feat. Stop Talking, F-Use (Tommy’s Pub) Excitable (Def Leppard tribute) w/ The Glampires (Amos’ Southend) Tribute (Allman Brothers Band tribute) (Visulite Theatre)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B

ReeCee Raps w/ Shelem, Nige Hood (Petra’s) R&B Spring Fest feat. Monica, Xscape, 112, Ginuwine, H-Town (Spectrum Center)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC Brett Milstead (Primal Brewery)

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC

AfroPop! Charlotte (Crown Station) Desmond Myers (Evening Muse) Digital Noir w/ DJ Spider (The Milestone) JSTJR (SERJ) Matoma (World Nightclub)

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL Milton Suggs (Stage Door Theater) Robyn Springer w/ Ziad Rabie, Rodney Shelton (Middle C Jazz)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Bob Fleming and the Cambria Iron Co. w Jacob Danielsen-Moore, Ryan Lockhart, Xtine G (The Milestone)

COUNTRY/FOLKS/AMERICANA

The Malpass Brothers (Stage Door Theater) Crystal Fountains (Comet Grill) Kenny George Band w/ Bodean and the Poachers (Evening Muse)

SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC

Jack and Patrick (Free Range Brewing)

LATIN/WORLD

Reinaldo Brahn (Middle C Jazz)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Sarah and the Safe Word w/ Dog Park Dissidents, Growing Stone (The Milestone) Mannequin Pussy w/ Petrov (Neighborhood Theatre) Dumpster Service w/ Flat Out Insult (Tommy’s Pub)

VISIT QCNERVE.COM FOR THE FULL SOUNDWAVE LISTING.

Pg. 15 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE THE GOOD, THE WURST AND THE BEAUTIFUL How The Good Wurst Company lifted me out of a pandemic funk

BY TIMOTHY DEPEUGH

REUBEN FRIES AT THE GOOD WURST CO.

Pg. 16 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

PHOTO BY KEN T Y CHUNG

To an outside observer, my recent love affair with The Good Wurst Company in Plaza Midwood began simply enough: I put down my phone and took a moment to appreciate the funk.

Except that, at the time, putting down my phone was no easy feat, and honestly, I just couldn’t be bothered to give a funk.

Maybe you’ve felt the same way. I mean, did any of us see that Omicron wave coming? (Of course we did. Because we’re not selfish, nor do we hate humanity. But how many times can you yell, “ENOUGH ALREADY! WEAR A FUCKING MASK!” at your neighbors before they call the police or try to evict you?)

The isolation somehow hit me harder this time.

Perhaps it’s because the wave coincided with my day job’s busy season. I never left my apartment because I couldn’t leave my apartment. I was glued to my desk, held captive by spreadsheets and

crippled by the notion that if I took 15 minutes to shower or change out of the-day-before-yesterday’s wardrobe, the spreadsheets would just keep piling up. I was also scared to death that this time, finally, I might just be the one to contract COVID-19.

In such dire straits, my social interactions became confined to social media. That’s where my trouble began.

I’ve written before that social media ruins everything. Reading through one sugar-coated food post on Instagram after another, though, more than annoyed me this time.

It angered me. It compelled me to turn words into shivs and respond with force. Was scrolling in isolation turning me into an angry food writer?

That’s certainly not what I wanted. And just as I was about to engage with one of the more vile and casually racist of the local food sycophants, I told myself to stop and open up UberEats instead.

When in doubt, I eat my feelings.

And that’s how I found The Good Wurst Company.

When my food arrived less than 30 minutes later, I stared at it, slack-jawed and speechless. This has become my standard reaction to anything I’ve ordered from there, a bit Pavlovian perhaps, but one whose incipience I can trace back to that very first encounter with their Reuben-style tater tots.

The tots were so precisely prepared that they wore their crunch like a level-up suit of armor, tempered and seasoned with all the skill of a medieval guild.

Wee fistfuls of crisp and fatty pastrami crumbles were thrown into the mix, but the pièce de résistance was the cheese.

This cheese (a shade of yellow-orange so specific that Pantone has probably already assigned it a number) was caught somewhere between liquid

and solid so that it lay atop the bulging mound of tots like a sitcom modesty towel.

Even better was the flavor; beer whipped inside that glorious goo gave it a yeasty, pungent twang that was unexpected and scintillating.

I wanted to get a picture of the whole thing, or to at least make an Instastory chronicle of the beautiful mess as it made its way down my chin.

But, no. This time was going to be different. This was food so good that I decided to put my phone down and take a moment to just appreciate the funk.

The best of The Good Wurst

I’ve ordered online from The Good Wurst Company 10 times since then, and each time has kept me from doing something stupid on social media.

When I decided to outsource my apartment

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE such a simple, consistent delight that it rivals any other in the Great American Fried Chicken Sandwich zeitgeist.

But the real fun comes in trying out different combinations of toppings. I’ve tried extra pickles with curry ketchup. I’ve tried sauerkraut and European mayo. I may have even tried the mustard cheese sauce. It’s impossible to go wrong. I think next time I may even try the spicy peanut sauce because why not?

Unlike endless social media posts of the unmasked living their best lives at my expense, this sandwich — and infinite iterations of toppings and sauces — will never disappoint.

A Central location

All of which is to say nothing of the times I’ve visited in person.

The Good Wurst Company is located way down on that stretch of Central Avenue where points on a map all seem to converge into one and the entire planet’s food cultures are there for you to experience, if only you make the effort to keep on driving straight.

I made the effort one day, once work had calmed down and once I received my shipment of KN-95 masks, to venture out of my apartment and meet up with friends for lunch.

Good Wurst offers indoor seating but also has a takeout window that is seemingly designed for the COVID-smart — another plus.

Finally, at a place called “wurst,” I had a chance to try the sausages.

In one version, they arrived chopped up and thrown into a junk heap atop fries slathered in curry ketchup.

My goodness, they were good: house-made, gently spicy and red, with chunk and profound heft. I didn’t feel guilty at all picking at the bits of wurst while I left my friend with the fries. That curry ketchup left her transfixed, just as it had done to me weeks before.

In another, knockwurst presented itself not in any manner you’d expect from a sausage sandwich.

It was sliced down the middle and stuffed spreadeagle in between a hard roll with Munster cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing. It was delicious and required a two-inch stack of napkins to eat gracefully in front of people.

People such as owner Lincoln Clark, who made an unexpected and bemasked appearance outside at our table. I hadn’t made the connection to Fuel

GOOD WURST’S REUBEN SANDWICH

Pizza until I met Clark. Semi-retired from that business, he told me he opened The Good Wurst Company as an homage to, well, his life.

As a food writer choosing — or at least trying hard — not to be angry, that really got to me.

I enjoyed Fuel Pizza the one time I felt bad enough about myself to order it; it tasted how I needed it to taste, and it made me feel less pathetic.

But the food here at The Good Wurst Company feels three-dimensional and lived-in comparatively – junk food that’s like for like, yes, but the epic historical novel version instead of the slender Cliff’s Notes summary.

Just like the pork schnitzel sandwich, the menu’s magnum opus.

It’s a stacked beast of a sandwich, layered with sautéed red cabbage, mushroom gravy, smashed fries, Dijon mustard and pickles.

To hear Lincoln tell it, the pork schnitzel sandwich is his version of Before Sunrise, each ingredient a reference to a time and a place, an

PHOTO BY KEN T Y CHUNG

experience abroad, or perhaps a secret love affair that he’ll take to the grave.

Those are the stories I love, you see. More than the likes and sycophancy, or the listicles to grow my personal brand.

It took the food at The Good Wurst Company to pull me out of a dark winter, social media-addled funk to tell me something I knew all along.

But make no mistake. Even as I sit here in between bites of a pastrami, egg-and-cheese breakfast bagel sandwich (the bagels here are Montreal-style, blended with sugar, and marvelous), I still sharpen my shivs.

A CNN news alert pops up on my phone, with Twitter and Instagram notifications to boot. “With the Omicron variant still gripping the US…,” it begins, and all I really want to do is scream at someone to fuck off, wear a mask, and go choke on a knockwurst.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

Pg. 17 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

hunting to my followers and ask for neighborhood and building recommendations, instead of blasting the local chef who sent me the address of a mental health clinic, I decided to play with potatoes.

There are more than just tots at The Good Wurst Company. It’s true. There are also fries.

Second only to the Reuben tots are the schnitzel fries. They will haunt you and make your breakfast better the next morning.

What I mean by that is, I don’t feel the need to inhale them all at one go. You wouldn’t be able to, anyway; a trifecta of creams — mushroom schnitzel gravy, mayonnaise and cheese — is intimidating even to the sturdiest of bon vivants.

Save some instead for the next morning (the Frank’s Red Hot sauce squirted on top doesn’t soak them, but actually makes them better the next day) and pair them with scrambled eggs. I figured out this secret after my fourth order.

When I’d had enough of watching food influencers use their followers for “original” content (“OMG you guys, where can I get, like, a great fish taco?” “OMG you guys, check out my NEW LIST of BEST FISH TACOS IN CLT!”), I had planned to post a thundering lamentation in response. But a friend talked me down from that soapbox and told me to go eat a burger instead.

The Wurst Burger, three times over, saved me from another mistake. Perhaps because it’s just so basic. I mean, that bun — the supermarket-brand stuff of wistful childhood memories.

Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and cheese; I began thinking less about how an influencer might OMG-you-guys those humble ingredients and more about the poems I would write in their honor.

Single or double, but always with bacon, this burger — with a playful secret sauce dripping shamelessly about — was my comfort in isolation.

And when isolation made me question my own sanity, the endless scrolling through food fakery, shams and self-promotion causing my mouth to swell with bile and my hand to seal in an arthritic death grip around my phone; right as I began to click on Live Feed and ask anyone who would listen, “Why do I even bother?”

I remembered The Good Wurst menu and willed myself to ask instead, though only to my cat who by that point had grown curious, “Just how many schnitzels can one man eat?”

I have yet to come to a satisfying answer, though the number currently is greater than five.

Here, the classic chicken schnitzel sandwich is

Pg. 18 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

LIFESTYLE PUZZLES

LIFESTYLE PUZZLES

TRIVIA TEST

BY FIFI RODRIGUEZ

CROSSWORD

1. MYTHOLOGY: In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of love. What’s the name of the Greek god of love?

2. MOVIES: Which movie series features a character named Inspector Clouseau?

3. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What is the basic currency used in Greenland?

4. HISTORY: What was the first toy to be advertised on U.S. television?

5. MEASUREMENTS: What is the unit of measurement used to gauge the speed and direction of a computer mouse?

6. GEOGRAPHY: Which U.S. territory’s unofficial slogan is “Where America’s Day Begins”?

7. TELEVISION: What is the longest running scripted TV series?

8. U.S. PRESIDENTS: Which president campaigned for election PLACE A NUMBER IN THE EMPTY BOXES IN SUCH A WAY THAT EACH ROW with the slogan “Happy Days Are ACROSS, EACH COLUMN DOWN AND EACH SMALL 9-BOX SQUARE CONTAINS Here Again”?

ALL OF THE NUMBERS ONE TO NINE. 9. LANGUAGE: In British English, ©2020 King Feautres Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved. what is a windcheater?

10. ANATOMY: What part of the PUZZLE ANSWERS ON PG. 21 human brain controls hunger?

SUDOKU

BY LINDA THISTLE

JPg. 19 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

DOWNSIZING ©2022 King Feautres Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

LIFESTYLE COLUMN

AERIN IT OUT DRAGGED TO BRUNCH

A first-time experience to whet my Palate

Pg. 20 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

BY AERIN SPRUILL

A couple weeks ago, I rolled over in bed to read a text from one of my besties that said, “Want to go to a drag brunch on Saturday?!” I pushed the sleep out of my eyes and grinned wide into a yawning stretch.

Though my quick response was, “Hehehe oh yes where?!” I knew that a Saturday brunch would show up all too quick after a Friday night excursion and the plethora of productivity I’d planned for the day would immediately be drop-kicked out of a window.

I’ve always been entranced by the carefree, the colorful, the non-normative, the familial, the performative, and oh honey, the dramatic atmosphere that follows the crowds flocking to drag shows and honestly most LGBTQIA+-friendly spaces.

The freedom to be whomever you want to be, no matter what race you are, how old you are, or how you identify is as intoxicating as the aroma of a heavenly perfume that lingers after a stranger walks past.

Something you want to keep forever, but that you know you’ll have to let go of, for it’s not yours.

Our options were Billy Sunday or The Artisan’s Palate, so I started my “research” — visiting the business IGs to locate flyers for the scheduled events, checking the performers’ IGs, reading the menus at both venues, and contemplating entry fees.

Putting my finger on the right IG and #linkinbio threw me into a guerilla-marketing, cross-platform spiral that may have been purposeful but could totally be user error. So I deferred to my girlfriend to purchase my ticket for The Artisan’s Palate: Come Together Drag Brunch with Valerie Rockwell, Logan Havens, Taylor KA St. James, and Shelita Bonet Hoyle (in absentia), proceeds going to Time Out Youth Center.

I’ve already discussed my feelings about Optimist Hall, so The Artisan’s Palate naturally would’ve been my first choice. Besides, I’ve also wanted to check it out whenever I’m making that familiar left at the Domino’s Pizza from The Plaza onto 36th Street.

And of course, memories of my last drag show experience at Chasers right next-door made the weekend’s plans all the more sweeter.

On “D” Day (see what I did there), a cold shiver ran down my spine at noon as I imagined the first sip of a mimosa. I knew I would regret my commitment. But the sound of reassurance from my boyfriend was music to my ears: “You like espresso martinis.” Well, there’s a solution man if I’ve ever met one. Bless.

I sucked it up, made a Spam sandwich to ground my tummy, then raced out the door, hopeful I wouldn’t become a “special guest” with “tardy for the party” as the joke.

A prompt 1:59 p.m. arrival for a 2 p.m. start time landed me in the safe zone. Upon entry, I was very curious how drag queens would traverse through the cozy venue complete with a full bar, wine wall, and art installations.

The music blasted, causing me to lift my eyes and find Valerie Rockwell aka “Aunt Carol,” mic in hand, clad in a pop-art bodysuit with puffy shoulders and fishnets busting out from around the corner in mid-lip sync busting full on dance moves — including high kicks!

Out of breath and unashamed, in all her Auntie-ness, one rule became very clear: Check your attitude at the door, Miss Valerie Rockwell was the captain of this ship.

“Are there any kids in here? No? Good. Fuck ‘em!”

Not a single jaw dropped in shock, instead, every gaping mouth was filled with laughter and booze in between bites of avocado toast and gravy biscuits. (Side note, bring singles if you want a better experience.)

The outfits were outrageously versatile in all the best ways, true works of active installation art, and the phrase, “give me face,” was redefined. The sweat poured, the dollars flew, and the liquor flowed.

But the best part was looking around and seeing all the different types of people from all walks of life (including a friend I hadn’t seen in years!) in attendance having a genuinely wholesome time.

And then, something even more amazing: an “educational moment” around proper pronoun usage amongst my friends.

The answers may or may not have been right, but it was the kind of synchronicity a women’s studies major going out of her usual comfort zone in nightlife routine looks for. It was confirmation that I was meant to be there.

Three espresso martinis, a belly full of laughs, hurt cheeks, and a drag queen crush’s number later, it was only fitting that as the day turned into night I wound up at the very optically different, dare I say optical illusion, Jeff’s Bucket Shop.

A place where the often appropriate response to karaoke performance is, “Sashay away!”

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

HOROSCOPE

FEB 9 - FEB 15

FEB 16 - FEB 22

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Temper that Aries impatience. Demanding answers or results before they’re ready to be revealed could create more delays. Take time out for fun with family or friends.

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) A close friend or relative has news that can change some of your plans. Be flexible. You could be in for a most-pleasant surprise at how things turn out.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Someone involved in your latest venture makes new demands that you find disturbing. While you dislike being a quitter, it might be best to drop this project and move on.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) A new opportunity opens just as you close the door on an earlier project. However, you should be prepared to make adjustments in your expectations.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) A decision could involve more serious implications than you first thought. Get more information and seek the counsel of trusted friends before you sign or say anything.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Expect a surprise ally in your corner when you confront a still-uncertain situation in your workplace. In your personal life, a family member has good news.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) It’s a good time to reconsider some of your plans, especially those involving major investments of money and/or time. Expect to hear from someone in your past.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) A co-worker could resent what he or she might perceive as arrogance on your part.

Smooth things over with a full explanation to avoid a serious misunderstanding.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) Love continues to dominate for both single and paired Lions. In the workplace, deal with a co-worker’s thoughtless comments before they cause problems later on.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) There is no time for catnaps this week. A workplace problem needs your attention before it gets out of hand. Ditto a financial matter that must be resolved as soon as possible.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) You might be angry enough to end a friendship because of something you were told. But consider the source of the gossip before you act.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Pressuring someone to act quickly on a problem could backfire. It makes good sense to be both patient and supportive if you want full cooperation.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Your career move seems to be stalled. Request a meeting to discuss the situation. It will be a learning experience for everyone involved.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) A touch of uncertainty lurks in your aspect this week. Weigh all decisions -- personal and professional -- even more carefully than you usually do.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) That important relationship is about to move to a new level. Continue to be patient, and resist pushing it even further. It still needs time to blossom.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) You need to use your innate good sense to help you sort through career offers that might not be what they appear. A trusted associate can help.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) Paired Sagittarians do very well at this time. However, some challenges loom for single Archers who are considering stronger romantic commitments.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) Things move along more smoothly at work, but a personal relationship presents some challenges that need close attention.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) Be patient. A misunderstanding is close to being completely resolved, as new facts emerge that will help change those stubborn minds.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) Positive observations resolve the last lingering doubts about a recent move. Now you need to work on that still-pesky problem with a loved one.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) A change in a personal relationship reveals some long-hidden truths.

Your challenge now is to use this new information wisely for all concerned.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) You might be a generous soul, but avoid being taken advantage of by those who have their own agendas. If you have any doubts, get out before regret sets in.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Draw on your deep reserves of good Piscean common sense to avoid taking the lure from someone who thinks he or she can get the best of you.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Your strength might be tested by conflicting priorities in your personal life.

Weigh the facts and then make the only choice you can: the right one.

BORN THIS WEEK: You have a remarkable ability to make BORN THIS WEEK: You have a deep sense of honesty friends with strangers. This allows you to command an and spirituality. People instinctively put their trust in you army of devoted admirers. to lead them to the light.

2022 KING FEATURES SYND., INC.

JPg. 21 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

Trivia Test Answers: 1. 24 Answers 1. Eros 2. “The Pink Panther” 3. Danish krone 4. Mr. Potato Head 5. Mickeys per second 6. Guam, whose location is near

the International Date Line 7. “The Simpsons” 8. Franklin Roosevelt (1932) 9. A windbreaker 10. Hypothalamus

PG.19 PUZZLE ANSWERS

LIFESTYLE COLUMN

SAVAGE LOVE DRINKING GAMES I’ll have the chowder

BY DAN SAVAGE

I’m a 40-year-old bi guy, and I’m really into drinking cum. I say “drinking” and not “swallowing” because I’m talking about glassfuls. I make and sell videos of me drinking large amounts of cum.

Since I don’t have a stable of guys to supply me, I use frozen cum. It used to just be my own that I saved up over time, but I met a guy online a couple years ago that’s into feeding his cum to people like myself. I have some health concerns about it.

First, could STIs survive the freezing-andthawing process? I’ve already had a few glasses of his cum, so the boat has sailed regarding my current “cumbull,” as they’re known in my niche sexual community, but I’m looking at getting more donors.

Second question, how much cum is safe to drink? And digest? It does give me an upset stomach, but I can usually handle that. Am I damaging myself by not taking my body’s prompt to throw it up? From the research I’ve done, it seems the zinc in cum is the biggest worry. Just 100 mls or so contains your daily required intake of zinc and too much zinc can have some negative health effects.

I’m aiming to drink at least a liter in one video and don’t feel comfortable discussing this with my doctor. Could you contact a doctor for me?

CANADIAN CUMSUMER

Pg. 22 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

P.S. I would’ve called into the podcast, but my sister is a listener, and I would rather not share this info with her.

Before anyone can jump in the comments and post “FAKE” in all caps, CC enclosed his Twitter handle in a postpost-script, which allowed me to verify that he’s for real.

What’s more, a quick scroll through CC’s Twitter revealed that he’s not the only person out there methodically acquiring and chugging enormous amounts of semen.

As it turns out, there’s a thriving community of “cumbulls” online who enjoy supplying, and even more cumguzzlers like CC who enjoy imbibing. (Sadly, CC asked me not to publish his Twitter handle, so you’ll just have to trust me: This letter is not a fake.)

Now, before I bring in the medical expert you hoped to hear from, CC, I wanna say this to my other readers: Nothing about CC’s kink appeals to me personally — it looks like way too much of a good thing — but CC and his cumbulls aren’t hurting anyone.

Indeed, the world would be a better place if it had more Canadians like CC in it and fewer Canadians like

those fascist assholes in trucks currently blocking border crossings.

Okay! Let’s meet this week’s guest expert!

“It seems like there are two questions here,” said Dr. Josh Trebach, an emergency medicine physician and a medical toxicology fellow in New York City. “The first question is the risk of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), the second is, ‘How much is too much?’ Is it safe to drink large volumes of semen?”

Dr. Trebach looked at the medical literature, CC, but found it “extremely lacking” for individuals who freeze, thaw, and drink large amounts of semen. Yours is an underserved (except when you’re being overserved) and unrepresented (except on Twitter) population.

“But we do know that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be transmitted from performing oral sex,” said Dr. Trebach. “This includes syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and HIV. And while it’s tempting to assume the freezing and thawing process would create a less welcoming environment for STIs, there’s evidence to suggest some STIs survive the freezing process quite well. Gonorrhea can survive temperatures lower than -300 degrees Fahrenheit for over a year. Chlamydia has also been able to survive after being frozen.’’

Now, STIs are not spontaneously generated when semen comes into contact with saliva, of course, nor are they spontaneously generated when someone packs their cum in dry ice and ships it off to a stranger they met on the Internet.

“But given the lack of data for those that freeze, thaw, then drink semen, I would encourage anyone doing this to err on the side of caution and assume practically the same risks as performing oral sex,” said Dr. Trebach. “This means knowing the STI status of you and your partner(s) and engaging in appropriate prevention strategies, e.g., PrEP, and frequent STI testing.”

So, let’s say your cumbull has been tested and is currently STI-free and in a monogamous relationship with someone who has also been tested. Or he’s tested, STI-free, and supplying his semen to men and women like you is his sole sexual outlet. If that’s the case, CC, you shouldn’t let an exaggerated fear of contracting an STI stop you from pursuing this pleasure.

That said, CC, the more cumbulls you add to your herd, the greater your risk for contracting an STI becomes.

Obviously. So, for safety’s sake where STIs are concerned, you should stick with your trusted supplier, even if that means longer waits between shoots.

As for your plan to drink an entire liter of cum in one video…

“So, how much is too much?” said Dr. Trebach. “In toxicology, we use a concept called the ‘median lethal dose,’ or ‘LD50,’ to describe how toxic a given substance is. The LD50 is, basically, the quantity of a substance that would kill 50% of people who were exposed to it — or in CC’s case, ingested it. It would be theoretically possible to extrapolate from human or animal data on the lethal dose of each individual ingredient (such as zinc) to come up with the LD50 of semen, but this would be theoretical and imprecise.”

And now a little science, a little math, and a little guesswork (from me, not Dr. Trebach): Zinc is a trace element that’s important for our immune systems, metabolic functions, our body’s ability to heal wounds, and the production of important enzymes.

Adult males should ingest about 11 milligrams of zinc daily, a single teaspoon of semen contains about 3% of that, and there are 203 teaspoons in a liter.

So, if you were to drink an entire liter of semen, CC, you would be ingesting roughly six times your daily recommended allowance of zinc, or 66 milligrams.

Assuming you don’t have some other, undiagnosed health condition, that’s probably not enough zinc (or semen) to kill you, but it is enough to make you puke.

“My opinion is that if you’re drinking so much of anything that you feel like you’re going to vomit, you should probably cut back, as that may be your body’s way of telling you something is wrong or that there is too much of something present,” said Dr. Trebach.

“And continuous irritation to your gastrointestinal tract through direct injury, distension, and repeated exposure is not advised.”

And even if there might not be enough zinc in a liter of semen to kill you — or enough citric acid or fructose or potassium or cooties — that doesn’t mean it’s safe to quickly ingest a liter of it.

“An age-old adage in the world of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison,” said Dr. Trebach. “Even things that may seem benign — water, candy, semen — can be deadly with a high enough dose, and you can have ‘toxic’ effects well below a lethal dose. In one liter of semen there’s enough sodium to surpass the recommended daily intake of sodium, and that’s just not really healthy.”

People have actually died from drinking too much water, CC. It’s rare, but it happens.

And it stands to reason that if a person can die after drinking 3-4 liters of water over the course of a few hours — which, again, has happened — it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn a person died after drinking an entire liter of semen over 140 seconds, i.e., the maximum length of a

video clip posted to Twitter.

You say you don’t want your sister finding out about your kink after hearing your voice on my podcast, CC, and I have to assume you don’t want your sister — or the rest of your family — finding out about your kink after hearing from the coroner.

I have a lot of mottos, CC, and one of them is, “Moderation in all things — including moderation.”

Your kink is not my kink, CC, but your kink is okay, as the saying goes, and your kink is about the consumption of immoderate amounts of semen. But I would advise you, as I have advised many others, to be moderate about how often you’re immoderate.

In your case, that means carefully choosing your cumbulls, puking when your body tells you to puke, and cutting back on the semen if your body needs to puke each time you do this. Otherwise, enjoy.

But the final word goes to Dr. Trebach, who wanted to add a quick disclaimer: He hasn’t examined you or taken a full history and physical, CC, so he doesn’t want you to think this is true medical advice.

“And I know talking with a doctor about some of these issues is hard, but I like to think things are getting better. Today’s new doctors are, in my opinion, much more comfortable and open when answering questions about sexual health. Although some questions may be niche, we physicians owe our patients respect and confidentiality as we are here to help them, not make judgments. Please find a doctor that you can discuss these questions with, so they can give you the best possible recommendations.”

Follow Dr. Josh Trebach on Twitter @jtrebach.

P.S. Good news, everybody! Just as I was wrapping up this column, CC responded to my email asking if he would reconsider and allow me to share his Twitter handle here.

And he said yes!

So, if there’s anyone out there who still thinks this letter is a fake, go have a look at @zoesixxx on Twitter. Be warned: You’ll never order the chowder again.

Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage; send questions to questions@savagelovecast.net; find Dan’s columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love!

February 17

JPg. 23 - FEB 9 - 22 2022

AVAILABLE IN CANS AND ON DRAFT