Queen City Nerve - September 22, 2021

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 22; SEPTEMBER 22 - OCTOBER 5, 2021; WWW.QCNERVE.COM

Lawn Friends spin a seaside yarn about greed, violence, redemption and trust

BY PAT MORAN

News: Boozin’ on a Budget hits the Catawba pg. 4 Arts: Migrant X is a Latinx-futurist community production pg.6

Never miss the catch again.

Ride CATS and get back in the game.

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R i d e t r a n s i t . o r g / C AT S C o n fi d e n c e

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PUBLISHER

JUSTIN LAFRANCOIS jl afra n co i s @ q cn er ve.com

NEWS& OPINION ARTS& CULTURE MUSIC

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RYAN PITKIN rpi tk i n @ q cn e r ve. c om

ART DIRECTOR

JAYME JOHNSON jjo h n s o n @ q cn e r ve.com

DIGITAL EDITOR

KARIE SIMMONS ks i m mo n s @ q cn er ve.com

STAFF WRITER

PAT MORAN pm o ra n @ q cn er ve . com

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FOOD& DRINK LIFESTYLE

6 THE X FACTOR BY RYAN PITKIN New UNC Charlotte play lifts up Latinx community 8 SUNSHINE NOIR BY PAT MORAN Lawn Friends spin a seaside yarn about greed, violence, redemption and trust 10 SOUNDWAVE 12 BEST OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES ON THE CATAWBA RIVER 14 LIFELINE: 10 COOL THINGS TO DO IN TWO WEEKS 16 PRETTY THAI FOR A WHITE GUY BY TIMOTHY DEPEUGH

Charlie Sullivan visits Latda Asian Food Market and discusses his cooking style

18 PUZZLES 20 AERIN IT OUT BY AERIN SPRUILL 20 HOROSCOPE 22 SAVAGE LOVE THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS: PAT MORAN, GRANT BALDWIN, TIMOTHY DEPEUGH, JOHN SEARBY, ADAM BRATTON, LILLIAN PARKER, AMANDA BISHOP, CHELSEA DEMOSS, KENTY CHUNG, MADELYN BLAIR, FRANCISCO CASTAÑEDA, WILLIAM P. GOTTLIEB, AERIN SPRUILL, AND DAN SAVAGE.

QUE E N C I T Y N E RVE I S LO CAT E D I N A DV E N T C OWO RKI N G AT 93 3 LOUI SE AVE N U E , C H A RLOT T E , NC , 282 04 .

FI R ST I S SU E O F Q U E E N C I T Y N E RVE F RE E .

E AC H A D D I T I O NA L I S S U E $ 5.

Lawn Friends spin a seaside yarn about greed, violence, redemption and trust

BY PAT MORAN

News: Boozin’ on a Budget hits the Catawba pg. 4

@QUEENCIT Y N E RVE W W W.QCNERVE .C OM

4 BOOZIN’ ON A BUDGET: RULES OF THE RIVER FLOAT How not to mess it up for everybody else

Arts: Migrant X is a Latinx -futuristic community production pg.6

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NEWS & OPINION FEATURE

BOOZIN’ ON A BUDGET: RULES OF THE RIVER FLOAT How not to mess it up for everybody else

Boozin’ on a Budget is a series of articles in which we hit different parts of town drinking cheap booze and usually follow some sort of theme (game bars, nice patios, etc.). In light of our recent partnership with OrthCarolina, for which we focus on the history, impacts and opportunities of the Catawba River and Carolina Thread Trail, we thought it would be fun to bring some folks onto the river for a special edition of Boozin’ on a Budget: Rules of the River Float.

Six of us got together to float down the Catawba from Fort Mill to Rock Hill in South Carolina, just a 30-minute drive from Charlotte. Our team consisted of the following: Ryan Pitkin and Justin LaFrancois with Queen City Nerve; John Searby with Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation; Adam Bratton with MJ Bratton and Human Powered Movement; and Lillian Parker and Amanda Bishop with OrthoCarolina.

We took to the tubes, boozed it up a bit and discussed what you should know before you take a river float, among other things. After inflating our floats in the parking lot, we prepared for departure.

there that says “Release schedule,” and it will tell you the release schedule for whatever day you’re about to go float. The other one would be, I would download the Catawba Riverkeeper app and download the Swim Guide. We sample every week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We’re testing for bacteria, and if it’s elevated levels of bacteria, we’re going to mark it red on the Swim Guide, and when it’s red, it is not a good idea to be jumping into the water. You can kayak here, but you shouldn’t be getting into the water if you have open wounds or to get it in your mouth or nose, because the bacterial levels are dangerous.

Ryan: OK, so we’re getting ready to take off.

Right now we have eight tubes for six people. Two of them look like pigs with wings; those are the ones Justin and I bought last year and they got us lots of attention on the river. My friend and expert at boozin’ on a budget Eric Lindberg lent us three River Run tubes, and John and Adam brought two very comfortable and professional-looking tubes and one plain black tube for a cooler. Me and Justin alone have 18 beers and four waters in the cooler.

Adam: Carabiners are always good, too, because What to bring: The accessories those are kind of a great resource for a worst-case Bluetooth speaker, beer, water, seltzers, insulated scenario to link stuff up. I’ve got my water bottle and cooler, ice, short-handled paddle, PFD, sunglasses.

I’m just attaching it to this float [with a carabiner].

The crew gets into the river, and before the release, Ryan: I’ve got my river shoes. We have two dry it’s pretty slow-moving. We turn on the recorder again bags for phones and whatnot. at 4:23 p.m. to discuss rules of the river.

John: There’s no power up here, nor bathrooms. RULE #2: ALWAYS REMEMBER THE That’s good to know.

SUNSCREEN Ryan: Usually the river is full of folks floating, if you Ryan: If you want to rent a tube, it’s been about come on a weekend. We’re here at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, a year and a half since they’ve been open, but usually so we are really out here all by ourselves. Justin and I Rockin’ River Adventures, they do 10 and 11:30 a.m. had a crazy experience last year; we left the sunscreen takeoffs on weekends. So what are we looking at, pre- in the car and because it was so crowded and we didn’t release? What do the water levels look like now? want to walk back, we went without it. We ended up so sunburnt we literally couldn’t move without ridiculous John: So we judge things in the water by cubic pain for more than a week. I 100% do not recommend feet per second, how fast it’s moving, so it’s probably that. Always wear sunscreen. around 2,000 cubic feet per second right now. That will move us along fairly smoothly. When they do RULE #3: TAKE IT EASY AND ENJOY this release, it’s going to take it up over 6,000. So YOURSELF we’re going to feel a push. When it gets from here to Lillian: I’ve done this river float four times. There’s wherever we are at the time, we’ll feel that. one experience in particular that I think takes the cake for all the crazy. I had recently relocated to Charlotte, had only been living in my apartment for a few weeks and I met some neighbors at the pool who invited me to float the river the next day ... People have different ideas of what casual day-drinking looks like, and the neighbors who I was with drank way too much. We almost lost our car keys because the float holding the bag with the car keys in it detached and no one really responded to that for a little while. So I rescued the keys … A thing about floating the river is you’re not really using your body, so you may not realize that you’ve had too much until you have to stand up and carry things and put on your shoes and all that jazz.

So long story short, everybody drank too much and it ruined the trip.

At the Fort Mill access point, located just below the Lake Wylie Hydro Dam, 2541 New Gray Rock Road, Fort Mill. It is 3:22 p.m.

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John: They’re going to do a scheduled release at 4 p.m., which means we got a rain storm coming, so they have to let water out of the lake. So at 4 o’clock they’re going to start releasing water out of the lake and this is going to go from kind of calmly [FROM LEFT] ADAM, JOHN, LILLIAN, RYAN, JUSTIN AND AMANDA. moving to not calmly moving.

Ryan: So your Rule of the River is don’t overdo it on the alcohol.

Lillian: Enjoy yourself but not at the expense of the people you’re with. That’s my rule for everything.

And you’ve got to give yourself permission to unplug.

Lillian: We have six seltzers.

Lillian: Is there somewhere we can find Leading up to this, it was like, “How long is this going to What to bring: The necessities information about the releases and currents? take? Does everyone have what they need? Where are John: We’ve got a 15-pack of beer.

Tubes for the people and tubes for the supplies, sun- we going to blah blah blah,” and then you get here and screen, carabiners, rope to secure tubes together, it’s like, “It’s a river float, man. Just sit down.” And then RULE #1: KNOW WHAT YOU’RE Ryan: We also have sunscreen, which is a must. river shoes, dry bag, handheld, battery-powered air you sit down and you’re like, “This is lovely.”

GETTING INTO Hats.

I brought my non-favorite sunglasses because pump, Catawba Riverkeeper and Duke Energy apps.

John: Before I would even leave my house, there they can easily get gone. Ropes to attach the floats.

Amanda: I have never floated this part of the would be two things I would do. I would download river, but I do paddle the Catawba often — standup Duke Energy’s app. They have a link you can click on PHOTO BY LILLIAN PARKER

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE paddle board. Growing up in Texas I was very used to flatwater paddling on lakes, and I will say my Rule of the River is to pay attention to dam releases. I typically put in at the Mount Holly boat landing and you really have to plan your direction leaving where you put in very carefully because you don’t want to come back to your put-in spot against the current.

Ryan: I have done that one time, standup paddle boarding from the Whitewater Center, and we came back against the current. I can confirm it is hell.

Lillian: Do you also follow the apps?

Amanda: I don’t. I just pay attention to when it’s going to rain, and when it has recently rained. I don’t do my due diligence as much as I should. This is just a tip that I myself don’t follow.

Adam gets out to pull the floats toward the middle of the river, as the current is moving very slowly.

RULE #4: REMEMBER YOU’RE IN NATURE, KNOW YOUR LIMITS Amanda: We should have brought a paddle. For the record. Bring a paddle.

Adam: That was a good day on the river.

Ryan: So John, as the Catawba Riverkeeper, do you get calls when there’s floaters or paddle-boarders doing dumb shit? People getting stranded and whatnot? I feel like you would know the best rules of the river.

RULE #5: TAKE OUT EVERYTHING THAT YOU BRING IN John: The no. 1 complaint we get is that floaters trash the river. So I think that would be my biggest pro tip is pack out what you pack in, same thing you would do on a hike. Bring a cooler, throw your empties back in the cooler, make sure that whatever you bring on those tubes gets in the trash cans on the take-out. Probably the most impactful moment of my time at CRK was paddling this section and coming to where Sugar Creek comes into the Catawba River, which is basically the entire drainage of the city of Charlotte coming into the river, and you go from having fish swim under your boat and visibly seeing the bottom, and then all of a sudden it’s nasty with sediment and trash and tires and plastic bottles everywhere.

There’s a huge trash pile right there that we have to clean up every single year and that really was impactful because it made me think about how interconnected this waterway is, that if you drop a plastic bottle in Charlotte, anywhere in Charlotte, in a parking lot at a Circle K in Charlotte, it will be in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and in the ocean in about 14 days. So I hear people all the time in Charlotte talk about that ocean plastic like it’s not their problem, well it kind of is. If you aren’t picking up plastic bottles that you see when you’re walking down the street, then you’re missing an opportunity to keep plastics out of our river and out of the ocean.

do a little bit. That’s really what changed my mind.

Any little thing I could do would matter after that.

I think I took this job thinking I was going to make these big huge brushstrokes and change everything overnight, and after that day I realized, all it takes is one little thing every day, and be intentional about doing something good for the water, and those will pile up. A lifetime of good things for the river will pile up to positive outcomes for everybody.

We have these things called Litter Gitters on Little Sugar Creek and Irwin Creek and they basically are floating trash traps and we took 6,000 pounds of trash out of them last year. So that was 6,000 pounds of trash that somebody didn’t pick up off the sidewalk or the curb or their neighbor’s yard. People ask us all the time, Water issues are big issues, how can I get involved? Well, pick up the trash in your neighborhood. That’s the way you get involved.

It begins to rain.

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Ryan: We are flippin’ moving.

Justin: This is the fastest I’ve ever gone on this river.

We go under the first bridge. Then Justin scrapes up against a grate and puts a hole in one of Eric’s floats. Justin holds his finger in the hole as we approach our take-out spot, then we pack up all of our belongings into a Catawba Riverkeeper shuttle bus just as a torrential downpour begins. It is 6:23 p.m.

RULE #7: BE MINDFUL OF YOUR NEIGHBORS John: We made it out just in time.

Lillian: I think floating the river is a bonding Justin: This isn’t the first time it’s rained on me experience. on this river. The first time Ryan and I came out here, we had a whole lightning storm form over top of us, Ryan: Just as long as it’s not with your neighbors. and I had a broken hand in a cast, so he had to get out and paddle us almost a quarter-mile to a bridge Lillian: Right. Hang out with your neighbors on where there were like 30 people waiting out the rain. land first then decide if you want to go on the river That sucked. Anyway, my no. 1 rule is don’t forget your with them. sunscreen.

Ryan: I’ve been out here about a dozen times It stops raining. It is 5:12 p.m. Adam and Lillian and that was the fastest I’ve ever gone down the get out and pull the tubes closer to the center. We are river. It usually takes between three and four hours. two miles from where we began.

John: I’m just glad we beat the rain. That would Ryan: We’re looking good now and moving pretty not have been fun. It started to get colder towards fast. A lot quicker than normal, thanks to the release. the end. It didn’t feel like August at all.

Adam: I’ve only paddled this section of the river one time, and it was not a float, but it was a paddle [kayaking]. It was last summer when I was doing the Carolina Thread Trail. So this is also part of the Carolina Thread Trail blueway. I set a goal of doing the entirety of it [the CTT greenways and blueways] in two months, which is a bit of an outrageous goal without really knowing the full extent of driving RULE #6: ALWAYS BE ON THE around 3,000 miles. So my Rule of the River is to stay Lillian: Was there an epiphanous moment LOOKOUT FOR ROCKS within your means. Understand your abilities.

It is 5:29 p.m. and we approach some rocks. before then that made you want to do this work?

Ryan: How are we looking on weather ‘cause it John: I took this job because I live on this river looks iffy. and I had this personal connection. I wanted to make it the same river as when I bought a house on it that Justin: We’ve got a 60% chance in 30 minutes. my kids could enjoy. It wasn’t until that paddle that It’s only supposed to go for about 10 minutes.

I really understood how everybody’s actions impact everybody else in a very personal way. It’s easy Amanda: I was on the French Broad [River] in when you live in a big city for it to be kind of out of Asheville with all of my in-laws, the entire Bishop sight, out of mind, and you think, “Oh I run along the clan; there were three teenagers, three preteens, and greenway, that’s nice,” but you don’t think where the it rained on us the entire way. Everybody was freezing, water in that creek goes. It goes here. So if you want people were climbing into each other’s floats and to continue to have a nice, enjoyable experience on putting them on top of each other. Teenagers were a float like this, and you don’t want to have a bunch crying. I was just passing a flask around. of plastic bottles floating along here, too, then just

eat some food and go to bed, but now that I can see where we are going to get out I kind of wish that we were going slower and that this was going to take longer because this is super chill.

Lillian: Rule of the River: Lift your butts.

Ryan: It’s also an entirely different experience when there’s no one else out there. Being out there when nobody else is, you don’t have to worry about the volume of your music or being awkwardly close to some other group that you don’t want to be close to.

Ryan: Yeah, when you see a rapid or a ripple in John: Yeah, you’re not listening to everyone else the river, that might be a rock not too far from the screaming and playing music like on a Saturday. surface. You need to lift your butts.

Adam: It’s the natural river vs. the shitshow of Lillian: Work your pelvic core. everybody. I’ve never floated that before, though.

That was a different experience. That was fun.

Justin: We are to the point now where we’re about to go underneath the first bridge and we’re Visit the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation moving about as fast as we can. Earlier, I was chill website at catawbariverkeeper.org to learn how you about how fast we were moving because I kind of can help keep it a clean space for floating, paddling just wanted to get done and go clean the house and and boozing.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

ARTS FEATURE

THE X FACTOR

New UNC Charlotte play lifts up Latinx community

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BY RYAN PITKIN

In a video posted by an Al Jazeera correspondent on Sept. 20, a Border Patrol agent on horseback looks down on a family of migrants attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico at a border crossing in Del Rio, Texas. The agent points at a man and yells, “This is why your country is shit, because you use your women for this!”

The agent then bucks his horse aggressively toward another group of migrants who scatter, including a young girl who nearly gets caught under the large animal’s hooves.

Though these migrants were Haitian, attempting to enter the United States through Central America due to recent destabilizing events in their own country, the behavior of the agent was nothing new to those familiar with the treatment of Latin-American migrants who have crossed our southern border over the years. Nor must it have been surprising to people like Georgina Escobar, a playwright who was born and raised in another Texas border town, El Paso.

In fact, it’s these misperceptions around “immigration” in the United States — the idea that people migrating across our borders are some sort of transgressors — that Escobar aims to confront with her latest play, Migrant X, an outdoor production set to open at UNC Charlotte on Oct. 2.

That goal begins with the name: Migrant X, as opposed to Immigrant X. “Immigrant is a socio-political term,” Escobar told Queen City Nerve. “You don’t say, ‘Those birds immigrated from here to there,’ you say they migrated. Migration involves movement, it involves growth, it involves this understanding of need-to; it’s not a want-to, it’s a need-to. Whereas immigration, because it’s in the political spectrum, it gets the rap of want-to or abuse of privilege and comes packed with that. I didn’t want to feed into the sociopolitical body politic of it all, but to really reinforce the fact that migration is natural and try to investigate our relationship with it.”

The production is a collaborative effort between Escobar and UNC Charlotte theatre professor CarlosAlexis Cruz, also the founder of the Charlotte-

based Nouveau Sud Circus Project.

Migrant X mixes Escobar’s Latinx-futurist writing style with the physicality of a Cruz production.

“We started from the script and followed the blueprint of what [Escobar] has dictated for us, which she did so in conversation with us. The weight of the story is primarily told by those words and the gestures, which is sort of the opposite of the work that I’m usually known for,” said Cruz.

Yet the two found more commonalities than differences.

“We have a lot of similarities in terms of, she likes movement in her plays. I’m a movement-driven individual,” he continues. “She’s also very musical, she’s a percussionist herself. She writes with that sense of rhythm. We have that in common. In that sense, we found a common ground.”

A local story

Based on interviews and conversations that Escobar carried out in 2019 with Latinx UNC Charlotte students and faculty, along with members of Charlotte’s broader Latinx community, Migrant X tells the tale of a Charlotte-based baker whose business serves as a sanctuary for members of the community during a series of ICE raids.

If the tale sounds familiar, that’s because it’s based on a true Charlotte story. While Escobar incorporated some fantastical elements into the script, implementing a style that Cruz calls “magical realism” and Escobar describes as “sci-feme,” the story’s foundation is based on Manolo Betancur, the very real owner of Manolo’s Bakery on Central Avenue in east Charlotte.

After fighting off his own deportation order in 2006, Betancur became an outspoken advocate for Charlotte’s Latinx community. In 2018, when Sheriff Garry McFadden ended his department’s participation in the controversial 287g program, which partnered the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office with ICE, he signed the paperwork in Manolo’s Bakery.

In 2019, when impromptu ICE raids were occurring at homes and small businesses around Charlotte and the Carolinas, Betancur refused to back down, speaking out publicly even as ICE visited his own business in search of one of his employees.

Betancur was one of the community members Escobar spoke with during her trip to Charlotte later that year, and he left an indelible impression on her.

“Manolo was the most narrative-driven in the sense that that’s why I decided to put him more

prominently in the piece, because I found his story to be the one that could function as a grounding point and a localizing point for your community,” she said, “and then let the others like the students and the committee that I talked to kind of just percolate into the world as sensibilities and not exact depictions of self.”

That, in turn, led to a conundrum for Carlos, who was tasked with casting the play back on campus.

“It’s rare, especially in theatre, to find not only older students, but an older Latinx student; that’s a tough call,” Cruz said. “I was nervous that I was going to have to play that part.”

Then he had a discussion with fellow professor Susana Cisneros, who made a suggestion that to her seemed logical, but to Cruz seemed outside the realm of possibility.

“She was like, ‘Have you thought about asking Manolo himself?’” he recalled. “I was like, ‘What?’

I would never ask somebody to play themself in a play. The level of oddity for that is immense.”

Cisneros insisted it would be a good idea, so Cruz agreed to meet with Betancur at his other business, Artisen Gelato in Matthews. The baker was onboard from the jump.

Now Cruz is excited about what Betancur brings

to the production, as well as the way he’s stepped up his acting chops during the relatively short rehearsal period.

“Just the fact that somebody who has been so central here that everybody knows ... that person is in the play here, bringing so much truthfulness not only to the project but also to the work with the students,” he told Queen City Nerve. “We expand and erase the barrier between the artist and the community and allow the space for a community activist to have a space to literally tell the stories in first-person.”

That mission extends beyond just Betancur, as Cruz also moved outside the usual protocol for student productions, casting two alumni and two non-theatre majors in the play. This was because he prioritized lived experience over traditional casting practices.

“We wanted to have that level of truthfulness, speaking from the Latinx perspective, and closer to the DACA reality and what it is to be a student with that difficulty,” Cruz said. “I often say in my plays and productions with Nouveau Sud: The stories, they’re almost better told in first person. If the artist that is telling you the story has lived similar experiences, the level of truthfulness, you cannot compare that to anything else.”

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What’s in a name

Migrant X was borne of a new student-led movement within the university to uplift Latinx voices on campus.

A group of Latinx students in 2018-19 called for more stories that represent their communities, and the university tapped Cruz to spearhead a new project.

Though he had already written and directed three student productions during his tenure at the university, he decided a collaborative effort would work best for the new venture.

While considering his options, he remembered Georgina Escobar, who had interviewed him while working as a freelancer for American Theatre magazine back when Cruz was working with Milagro, a renowned Latinx theatre company based in Portland, Oregon.

Escobar was intrigued to accept the project, but first she wanted to find out why Cruz didn’t simply take the lead.

After all, he was asking her to write a localized tale about a city where he lived but she knew nothing about.

Cruz was already working on his Nouveau Sud project, La Bestia, a story about migration that he could just as well have turned into a student production.

“I think there was this need to find a writer who could break up the narrative a bit more and not just go with the story about a journey, which is what I believe La Bestia really is,” Escobar said. “[Migrant X] is less the story about a journey, and more the story about algebraic components; how do you solve for X? What makes us this?

What does this journey mean? I think that’s why I said yes. I said, ‘OK, we’re different voices, we’re different creators and there’s obviously a want to investigate this from different angles and I can help unpack that in this science-fiction way.’”

Escobar’s algebraic approach to storytelling, the sci-feme style that aims to look past social

constructs and break them down into biomimicry, is just one way in which the X from the title comes into play in the production.

“It was very important for me to talk about how we intersect — X marks the spot, that cross section — and really investigate what the X means in Latinx, in crossing borders, in intersectionality, in algebraic terms,” she said. “So I took that approach of saying, we’re all more connected than we think we are if we look at our journeys as those that we go through with our feet and the terrains and the spaces that we walk through and how we walk through them.”

Cruz himself received an education on the term Latinx from Georgina. The term is most often thought of simply as a gender-neutral identifier

it can be gender neutral, but it can also cross cultures,” he said.

This was just one example of how his working relationship with Escobar, though limited mostly to phone calls, was a fulfilling experience.

“Encountering Latinx artists that have a certain affinity or similar intentions and interests, it’s almost like a sigh of relief,” he said. “We can speak Spanish and click on a different level than we would do with other artists in this country. I think we have that.”

It was also a chance for him to step up for his community in response to his own students’ calls for representation, even if he was met with a pandemic while trying to do so.

Migrant X was originally slated for spring 2020, and has been pushed back three times since, semester by semester. While this gave him and Escobar more time to flesh out changes to the script and hone in on ideas for a sharper focus, it also brought about wholly new issues.

For example, when you push a student production back from spring to fall, some of the cast members may be graduating before the new run dates. When you push it back three times, the majority of the cast is most likely going to be gone

by the time the show runs.

“The unfortunate thing is the students that dreamt this possibility, to have the first Latinx show that has been done in this department, because of the nature of universities and the time that it takes to get something going, they’re not necessarily living it,” Cruz explained. “The students that requested to do this piece already graduated and moved on and they’re somewhere else.”

In the end, Cruz was able to keep on two students who graduated while the show was going through delays. One is a student whom Escobar interviewed back in 2019 and another is Ginger Ducie, one of the students who made the original call for more Latinx representation in UNC Charlotte’s theatre department.

Despite the stress of the two-year process, Cruz is excited to finally see it come to fruition.

It reminds one of the old theatre expression: The show must go on. But of course, as he’s wont to do, Cruz has created his own version.

“Things get nerve-wracking and everybody’s all stressed out, but I always say, ‘At the end of the day, the curtain will rise nonetheless.’”

RPITKIN@QCNERVE.COM

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for Latino, and he had known it to be a contentious term among some Hispanic people (“Is it an oversimplifying term? Is it proper Spanish?”).

But as a Puerto Rican who has worked closely with Latin Americans from different countries and communities throughout his career, Cruz came to appreciate how Latinx can act to connect communities throughout the diaspora.

“What I have learned directly from Georgina is the X is a variable that represents many things;

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MUSIC FEATURE SUNSHINE NOIR

Lawn Friends spin a seaside yarn about greed, violence, redemption and trust

Pg. 8 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

BY PAT MORAN

Thunder growls and a zigzag of lightning cracks the sky. Tires spitting gravel, a rain battered MGB pulls into a hotel parking lot. MC, an out-of-work private eye, fishes his last cigarette out of the pack before crumpling it while he eyes Siesta Sands, the seedy resort south of Atlantic City’s bustling boardwalk. The vacancy sign flashes on.

This is the opening scene, detailed in story and song on Siesta Sands, the new concept album to be released on Sept. 24 by Lawn Friends, a nom de plume for Charlotte musicians Colby Dobbs and Mike Ramsey.

The album will be on the usual streaming platforms, but to get the full effect of its artistry, you have to sample the full package, and that is only available through Lawn Friends’ Facebook page or through direct email at lawnfriendsmusic@gmail.com.

Collaborating with over 20 local musicians and a handful of national recording artists, Dobbs and Ramsey have fashioned a film noir-styled project with 11 layered, impeccably produced songs that mix Sam Spade with Steely Dan, along with brief betweenthe-tunes scenes reminiscent of old-time radio, and an illustrated booklet containing a libretto that lays out dialog, lyrics and hard-boiled action.

The impressive package also contains a swag bag of sorts containing souvenirs including a “Do not disturb” doorknob sign, a slot machine token, a postcard and more evoking the fictitious hotel where the story and songs are set. It proves that in an age of CGI, virtual reality and high-end video games, there’s nothing more immersive than a good story or great album.

The evocative, twisting and sometimes surreal plot, set in 1980, goes like this: World-weary P.I. MC checks into the past-its-prime seaside hideaway Siesta Sands. He meets hotel maid Peaches and a nascent romantic chemistry ignites between the pair. Unknown to MC, Peaches has had a love child with penthouse-dwelling hotel bigshot Albert.

MC also meets Louie, who incessantly flips a coin like the stereotypical Prohibition-era gangster played by George Raft in the 1932 crime film Scarface. Louie is dealing with fugazi (fake) slot machine tokens. He’s a little too loose-lipped about

the enterprise though, and later that evening he takes a swan dive off the hotel roof. Meanwhile, Peaches and MC acknowledge their mutual attraction and begin to cautiously trust each other.

The only question is, can they afford to trust?

Oh, and did we mention that this is only the first act of what will be a multi-installment story?

and the other at the late lamented Double Door Inn. In time, the two friends established solid musical reputations in the Queen City. Dobbs is an accomplished and flexible keyboardist and extraordinary vocalist who fronts the eclectic Colby Dobbs Band. He’s been a full-time musician since 2013. Ramsey is a singer-songwriter who released a pair of Americana-tinged EPs before arranging his tunes to play with a fivepiece orchestral ensemble called simply The 5 Ensemble.

Though Dobbs is prepping a new release by his band and Ramsey played with the ensemble at Visulite Theatre in July, both were ready for a detour from their main projects. It took one more event to catalyze the collaboration. “[Siesta Sands] wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for COVID,” Dobbs offers.

When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, nobody in the music field was touring, he says.

Everybody was doing everything remotely, and that made everyone equally accessible. But before Doobs and Ramsey could approach anyone to contribute to their noir musical, they had to figure out just what their character-driven concept was.

Ramsey remembered reading a book in elementary school called Sideways Stories From THE COVER OF A BOOK THAT COMES WITH THE SIESTA SANDS PACKAGE. Wayside High. The 1978 short story cycle is about a school that has 30 floors, with each chapter taking place on The big combo a different floor. He pitched Dobbs on the idea of “This was never going to be as big as it became,” developing a cast of characters and throwing them Dobbs says. together in a condo.

Before Siesta Sands emerged as part noir Dobbs wrote a raft of material for the album musical, part yacht-rock opera, it was a pair of songs in a week and a half. His contributions include the Ramsey wrote and ran past his friend Dobbs. album’s title track, which kicks off the collection “It was, ‘Put some keyboards on these tunes and with Dobbs’ plaintive dissonant piano and his torchy send them back to me,’” Dobbs remembers.

R&B-flavored vocals.

Sharing music for feedback wasn’t unusual for “Mike sees all the dark stuff in the story and I Dobbs and Ramsey. The pair, now in their mid-30s, see all the funny stuff,” Dobbs says. “Everything I was grew up down the street from each other and have writing; I was just being as silly as I wanted to be.” been friends ever since they attended Parkwood Dobbs’ wicked humor leaps to the forefront in Middle School together. They started collaborating the soaring gospel-inflected “The Lobby” where musically in their 20s, playing together in a number his spiraling, crooning vocals make the promise of bands. One group called The Delta Progression of kamikaze shots by the pool and a continental scored a pair of big gigs — one at Amos’ Southend

breakfast sound like an evangelical altar call.

Early in the project’s gestation, Ramsey decided to have a hard-boiled tough guy narrator, an approximation of Chandler’s first-person point of view that filtered unsavory events through the eyes of his detective, Philip Marlowe. For the voice of Siesta Sands’ P.I. MC, Ramsey recruited Brendan Carter, an actor buddy from his college days at UNC Wilmington.

Once Dobbs and Ramsey heard the voice of MC, they decided to bring in other voice actors to portray characters like Peaches, Albert and Louie.

Any number can play

To finance the project, the Lawn Friends launched a Patreon and started putting out songs monthly.

“We needed deadlines because we’d end up playing video games and not doing it,” Ramsey says.

Dobbs was grateful for the deadline because it sharpened his focus. “I’m a perfectionist in terms of things being produced a certain way,” he says. “It took a long time.”

Once he got a new track at his home studio, Dobbs would work with it for a week to get it where he wanted it. Lawn Friends then released each song between the first and third of the month, after which they would start on the next tune.

The songs then went out to Patreon subscribers with a mailer each month. In each mailer, there was be a Siesta Sands tchotchke – the slot machine token much like the coin flipped by Louie, the card left by the maid service signed by Peaches or the keychain for Room 305, where Albert’s thugs take MC to rough him up.

Ramsey points out that, in the new album, they’re putting out some songs they’ve had in their quiver for a year. The saving grace of their working method is that it prompted the project to be more like a musical and less like a band.

“If we had 11 songs and went into the studio and did it, it would’ve come out very different,” Ramsey says. “This allowed us to get very different people [on the project].”

Each song was started from scratch with a different collaborator, each one recorded in their own home studio.

Lawn Friends’ plan of attack formulated slowly.

Initially, when they recorded one of the first songs, the title track “Siesta Sands”, Dobbs called on Charlotte drummer Donnie Marshall, because Marshall had just gotten his home studio up and running and he wanted to test the studio’s capabilities.

Ramsey says the song was like a practice project for Marshall. From there it snowballed. Dobbs and Ramsey recruited Charlotte bassist Anna Stadlman to play

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MUSIC FEATURE

sleuths who incidentally share their name with the moniker Dobbs and Ramsey chose for the album.

Sergel sent back 30 tracks, only eight of which on the song. The ranks of local players on the album were straight drums. The rest of the tracks were swelled to include horn player and arranger Brad Wilcox, guitarist Joe Lindsey, violinist Emanuel Winter and drummers Curtis Wingfield, Jim Brock and Al Sergel IV. The very first song recorded for the project is not even on Siesta Sands: Act One. Instead, the song, entitled “Last Stop for Peaches,” is slated to appear on the follow-up to Lawn Friends’ saga — the second act. Listening to the demo he cut for “Last Stop for Peaches”, Ramsey was struck by how much it reminded him of the now-dormant Charlotte jazz rock trio Green Light, comprised of bassist Dustin Hofsess, drummer Adam Snow and guitarist Kevin Gill.

“I said if it sounds like Green Light, let’s just get all the guys,” LAWN FRIENDS: MIKE RAMSEY (LEFT) AND COLBY DOBBS. Ramsey says.

Hofsess and Snow played on the experimental sounds — recordings of a kid’s toy song. Hofsess’ contribution is a fretless bass track and hammering on a cardboard box. that went beyond anything Ramsey could imagine.

On a recommendation, Lawn Friends also “We used a lot of [players] on the project just to reached out to Mioune, a French vocalist who hear things we wanted to hear,” he says. had sung for Disney projects, to provide heartfelt Since the song has a jazz pop feel inspired partly by backing vocals for the cinematic and agitated track Steely Dan alumnus Donald Fagen’s 1982 debut album “The Quiet,” a tune where the sleepless and haunted The Nightfly, Dobbs and Ramsey recruited frequent MC begins to formulate his desire for redemption.

Steely Dan trumpeter Michael Leonhart to play on it.

“We would not tell guys what to play unless it “We knew good trumpet players, but we also was specifically written down,” Dobbs says. “It was knew [Leonhart] would get it,” Ramsey says. He just, ‘Here’s the tune, play what you hear.’” notes that quite a few nationally-known players “We said ‘We have one tune for you. We love didn’t answer their email invitations to play on their what you do. Put your energy in that,’” Ramsey says. project, but just as many did. The Lawn Friends’ strategy became inviting collaborators to became the curators of their respective songs, often playing Show biz kids Dobbs and Ramsey each included their own alter whatever they felt would work, rather than just egos on the album, parts of a group of kids running being a hired gun on the tune.

On the swaggering jazz-pop extravaganza amok in the hotel. Circling back thematically “Come Inside, Por Favor,” Dobbs’ impassioned R&B- to Sideways Stories From Wayside High, the kids imbued vocals wind around his brightly gleaming introduce a refreshingly incongruous element of kid synthesizers. Since the song has such a 1980s big- literature to the album and libretto.

They also mirror Dobbs’ and Ramsey’s playful pop sound, Dobbs and Ramsey joked that it would be great to get Shannon Forrest, touring drummer approach to the material. Like the Hardy Boys and with Toto from 2014-19, on it. They emailed him, Nancy Drew, the Lawn Friends characters discover a and Forrest happily supplied the big crashing drums. sliding painting that leads to a secret passage, as well The partners also sent drummer Al Sergel IV as Louie’s body. The inspiration for the inquisitive kids is the jaunty, finger-popping “Lawn Friends,” which drawn from real life, in this case vacationing swingers.

“We have an acquaintance who went to a hotel introduces a playful element to Siesta Sands with with another family, and they engaged in adult a group of bored neglected kids turned amateur

activities,” Ramsey says. “I think the kids were just running wild. There was probably so much shit going on when I was a kid that my parents were involved in that I was just oblivious to.”

Dobbs says his brief in the song “Lawn Friends” was to depict kids just trying to have a good time.

“But the parents are probably having a better time,” Dobbs says with a chuckle.

With Act One of the pair’s noir saga primed to take on the world, Dobbs and Ramsey are already prepping for Act Two. “When you stamp Act One on there, you’re telling PHOTO BY CHELSEA DEMOSS people there’s going to be an Act Two,” Ramsey says. “I feel an obligation to make it good.”

Dobbs says they’ve already hashed out the

bones of the Siesta Sands sequel. The pair mastered the album at Old Colony Mastering in North Scituate, Rhode Island, a facility owned and run by Scott Craggs. After the lengthy mastering session was complete, Dobbs and Ramsey drove to Providence, about 20 miles down the road, to get some muchneeded food. The plan was also to get shit-faced to celebrate putting the project to bed.

“We ended up drinking a bit, but we also hashed out the whole second act,” Dobbs remembers. “In our drunkenness, we mapped out the whole thing.

I’ve got it all in my phone.”

Dobbs’ blue-skies prognostication for the project would be a full stage presentation of Siesta Sands.

Ramsey posits a back-up plan where he and Dobbs would play the songs while some actors would share the stage to push the dialog and plot along.

“We want to do more with it than just say, ‘Here are songs.,” Ramsey says.“Even though the songs are great.”

Already, Ramsey envisions a black stage where a neon “No Vacancy” sign flashes to “Vacancy” just as lightning streaks the sky and thunder rumbles. Then Dobbs would come out and sit at his piano.

“I would get goosebumps seeing that,” Ramsey says with an excitement that shows why noir will never die.

PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM

MUSIC SOUNDWAVE

SEPTEMBER 22 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

The Dead Tongues, Alexa Rose (Evening Muse) The Dead Tongues is a solo project of North Carolina folk-fusion artist Ryan Gustafson.

State Champs (Fillmore) Albany, New York pop-punk band State Champs specialize in songs that balance joy and angst.

Monachopsis, Family Video, Halloween Costume Contest (The Milestone) Charlotte progressive indie-rock quintet Monachopsis originally hailed from Myrtle Beach.

Motionless In White (Underground) Motionless in White blend the raw fury of metalcore with the dramatic atmospherics of goth-metal.

NO FUTURE Residency: The Emotron, Cheesus Crust, DJ Fat Keith Richards (Snug Harbor) The Emotron is a local performance art project based on composition on a vintage MIDI sequencer.

SEPTEMBER 23

Pg. 10 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Anberlin (Fillmore) Orlando’s Anberlin present an alternative pop-rock sound inflected with the earnestness of emo.

Adelitas Way (Underground) Las Vegas rockers Adelitas Way land at the crossroads of grunge, alt metal and hard rock.

A-Minor, Sonido Sanchez, Zzzzaappp (Snug Harbor) An end of summer jam with three DJs. Stephen Day, Carly Bannister (Evening Muse) Nashville’s Carly Bannister offers a refreshing take on the Music City sound.

Here Come the Mummies (Neighborhood Theatre) It’s terror from beyond the grave when this crack funk rock band plays under wraps in mummy garb.

Islander, Fear Until Fury (Amos’ Southend) Islander is an American alternative metal band from Greenville, South Carolina.

Eliza Neals (US National Whitewater Center) Eliza Neals is a blues-rock powerhouse vocalist, musician, producer and recording artist from Detroit.

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Son Volt, John R. Miller (Visulite) Alt country rock veterans Son Volt define the genre.

Carolina Songwriters (Petra’s) Carolina Songwriter Night with Danny Platt, Molly McGinn & David Childers.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

Thomas Robinson (Middle C Jazz) Thomas Robinson performs the blue-eyed soul songs of Hall & Oates, Robin Thicke, Ed Sheeran and more.

SEPTEMBER 24 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Erin & the Wildfire, Travers Brothership (Camp North End) Travers Brothership transforms soulful, blues-based rock ‘n’ roll into psychedelic jam.

Red Wanting Blue, Anthony D’Amato (Neighborhood Theatre) Red Wanting Blue have been hailed as Midwestern rock heroes by American Songwriter magazine.

Candlebox (Underground) Seattle post-grungers Candlebox are rooted in bluesbased, classic-style hard rock.

That Guy Smitty, Jay Cooper (Snug Harbor) An iconic DJ presents “Deep Fried Disco.”

Alright, Gnawing, Dead Billionaires, Dipstick (The Milestone) Dead Billionaires play ramshackle rock ’n’ roll from Richmond, Virginia.

Brother Smith (US National Whitewater Center) Kentucky’s Brother Smith went from roots-driven acoustic duo to progressive and eclectic ensemble.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

Julian Vaughn (Middle C Jazz) A Vaughn show includes love songs, funky songs, dance songs, ballads and the occasional fusion tune.

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Sean McConnell, Tristan Bushman (Evening Muse) Singer-songwriter McConnell makes music that reflects the chaotic time in which it was made.

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

Jelly Roll (CMCU Amphitheatre) A 2013 dispute with Waffle House helped launch this Tennessee hardcore rapper’s career.

SEPTEMBER 25 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Lil Skritt, Dorm Rooms, Atticus Lane (Petra’s) Dorm rooms are a local indie-pop outfit created in a dorm room, naturally.

Valar Morghulis, The Silencing Machine (Skylark

Social Club) In Game of Thrones lore, Valar morghulis translates to “all men must die” in High Valyrian.

Venus Invictus, Death Of August, Midnite Massacre (Tommy’s Pub) Venus Invictus is a self-described “independent Charlotte band that offers lively, high-energy music.

Trey Anastasio (CMCU Amphitheatre) Phish cofounder Anastasio explores musical pathways including atonal fugues and experimental free jazz.

Aaron Kamm and the One Drops (US National Whitewater Center) AKatOD merge roots reggae, Mississippi River blues, improv-laced jams, and soulful vocals.

Flame Tides, Careless Romantic, Thomas Palmes & The Groove Skeletons (Evening Muse) Charlotte’s groovy blues-rock duo Flame Tides share a stage with Q.C. alt-rock quartet Careless Romantic.

Ultima Nota, DJ Nick Martin (Snug Harbor) Five-piece Ultima Nota boasts members from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and El Salvador.

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

State Property (Underground) Launched by Philadelphia rapper Beanie Sigel, State Property is a slick rap consortium.

NiiTO, Aarik (Evening Muse) NiiTO’s sound blurs the lines between R&B, rock, pop, soul, funk, jazz, blues and more.

SEPTEMBER 26

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Alan Davis (Tommy’s Pub) A Celtic session of jigs, reels, airs, and tunes cursing Oliver Cromwell.

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Band of Horses (Fillmore) Band of Horses specialize in woodsy mid-tempo rock and reverb-laden vocals.

Somnuri, And I Become Death, Angel Massacre (The Milestone) Somnuri is a Brooklyn-based sludge-metal trio.

Sam on Sunday: Stillhouse Junkies (Evening Muse) Colorado band that plays a delirious, head-spinning mixture of roots, blues, funk, swing and bluegrass music.

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

Mod Son (Underground) Minnesota rapper Derek Smith drummed in Four Letter Lie before striking out on his own as Mod Sun.

SEPTEMBER 27 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Find Your Muse Open Mic (Evening Muse) Two songs or 10 minutes maximum (all originals preferred). Spoken-word and standup welcomed.

Cabinet (Heist Brewery) Northeast Pennsylvania’s Cabinet specialize in psychedelic roots rock and folk-grass.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

The Bill Hanna Legacy Jazz Session (Petra’s) A rotating crew of top jazz players pay tribute to Charlotte’s godfather of jazz.

SEPTEMBER 28 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Anthony Green (Amos’ Southend) Singer Anthony Green has had a hand in many bands throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Lorna Shore (Neighborhood Theatre) Lorna Shore are brutal purveyors of deathcore and metalcore.

Holy Wave, Peel Dream Magazine, Boy A/C (Snug Harbor) Holy wave is an eclectic band of multiinstrumentalists from El Paso, TX. Jordy Searcy, William Hinson, Marielle Kraft (Evening Muse) Searchy pens poignant, insightful lyrics that pinpoint the human experience.

Jeffrey Dallet, The OTS, Januryknife (The Milestone) Jeffrey Dallet is a touring Denver, Colorado singersongwriter-guitarist

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Greta Rose, Steve Simpson, Al Lemmond & Duane Centola (Tommy’s Pub) A songwriters session featuring influences and originals with host Paul Lover

SEPTEMBER 29 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Otherwise, September Mourning (Amos’ Southend) Las Vegas’ Otherwise explore plaintive post-grunge and aggressive hard rock.

NO FUTURE Residency: Aloha Broha, Duckbeak, DJs Fat Keith Richards, KK & StewDoggy (Snug Harbor) Aloha Broha play fractured punk and ska-inflected pop.

Crumbsnatchers, Fortezza, Jordyn Zaino (Evening Muse) Fortezza combines influences ranging from garage punk to avant-garde jazz .

Petrov, House & Home, Suntitle, Woah (The Milestone) Charlotte’s Petrov pairs careening post-punk guitars and soaring pop melodies with unmatched passion.

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Eric Hutchinson (Neighborhood Theatre) Eric Hutchinson plays introspective, and jazz-tinged music that weighs happiness against sadness.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL Tyra Scott (Middle C Jazz) Tyra Scott sings Natalie Cole.

MUSIC SOUNDWAVE SEPTEMBER 30 ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Okkervil River, Damien Jurado (Neighborhood Theatre) Texas-based indie rockers take their name from a Russian short story.

Moa, Modern Moxie, Kadey Ballard (Visulite) Moa weaves a velvety shroud of keyboards, evoking haunted music-box melodies.

Kristen Ford, Sail The Rain, The Whiskey Predicament (The Milestone) The Whiskey Predicament is a one-man band consisting of CLT singer-songwriter-guitarist Nate Fey. SHIPROCKED! (Snug Harbor) A “night of 1,000 Bowies.”

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

MC Lars, MC Frontalot, Schaffer the Darklord, Mega Ran (Amos’ Southend) Mega Ran’s album Live 95 combines autobiographical narratives and hard-hitting messages.

Celeste Moonchild, Chocolate Kendy, Jashanta, Sidenote (Petra’s) Neo-soul artist Celeste Moonchild keeps it funky with strong jazz and hip-hop influences.

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Leslie Mendelson, Casey Noel (Evening Muse) Mendelson is an artist boasting a loyal audience ready to embrace the ethos of the urban hippie.

Brooks & Dunn (PNC Music Pavilion) The kings of the 1990s line-dancing craze keep boot scooting and boogeying in the not-so-new millennium.

Time Sawyer (US National Whitewater Center) Time Sawyer propel their version of eclectic folk rock with some of the finest songwriting in the region.

OCTOBER 1

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

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Goodnight Texas (Visulite) Goodnight Texas exists at the windblown crossroads of blues, folk, country and rock.

The Bones of J.R. Jones (Evening Muse) Jones weaves his own tapestry of American roots music, a classic sound for the modern world.

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Bella Poarch and Sub Urban (Underground) Filipina-American pop singer and TikTok star Bella Poarch teams with producer Sub Urban.

The 502s (Evening Muse) Five-piece indie-folk band The 502s are a selfdescribed ray of Florida sunshine (minus the COVID).

Gustaf, Patois Counselors, Heavy Liquid (Snug Harbor) Psychedelic art punks Gustaf frequently indulge in crude comedy.

Rebelution (CMCU Amphitheatre) Rebelution play an amalgam of pop-tinged reggae, breezy alt-rock, and groove-laden hip-hop.

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

Jonathan McReynolds, Mali Music (Neighborhood Theatre) Jonathan McReynolds is an award-winning gospel artist.

Stitchy C, Jones McShine, Poetic Met, Rashaddre (The Milestone) This massive and eclectic hip-hop show also features other rappers not included above.

AKITA, Folk Rap Band, Chad Andrew Harris & The Blue Herons (Tommy’s Pub) FRB features laid-back slinky grooves, curls of honeytoned guitar, bouncing bass and jazzy hip-hop drums.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

A multi-national Gaelic vocal juggernaut.

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

Moneybagg Yo (Fillmore) Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo brings grit and menace to his rhymes about street life.

OCTOBER 4

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Thrice (Fillmore) Orange County post-hardcore outfit Thrice have dropped five consecutive indie top five releases.

Great Wide Nothing, Duckbeak, Bhava, Earth That Was (The Milestone) Charlotte sci-fi rock duo Earth That Was share a bill with Queen City emo psych rockers Bhava.

JAZZ/CLASSICAL/ INSTRUMENTAL

Justin-Lee Shultz (Middle C Jazz) Fourteen-year-old keyboardist and jazz prodigy Justin-Lee Shultz graces the Middle C Jazz stage.

OCTOBER 3

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

School of Rock Cornelius Showcase (Amos’ Southend) The program features six bands of youths from three performance programs.

Fozzy (Underground) Supposedly long-lost metal pioneers, Fozzy is actually WWF wrestler Chris Jericho fronting Atlanta rapmetal outfit Stuck Mojo.

The Coursing, Neverfall, Detest The Throne, Half L1fe (The Milestone) A confluence of various metal and noise subgenres.

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

Gaelic Storm (Neighborhood Theatre)

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

Jackie Venson (Evening Muse) Singer-songwriter Venson abandoned the straightlaced world of classical for the raw power of blues and soul.

SEPTEMBER/ OCTOBER 2021

ROCK/PUNK/METAL

The Pinkerton Raid, Sway in the Trees (Evening Muse) The Pinkerton Raid pushes at the borders of folk, Americana and indie rock.

OCTOBER 5

VISIT QCNERVE.COM FOR THE FULL SOUNDWAVE LISTING.

OCTOBER 2

COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA

RAP/HIP-HOP/SOUL/FUNK/R&B

Boldy James, jaH-Monte Ogbon (Snug Harbor) Detroit rapper Boldy James specializes in spare, melancholy and psychedelic storytelling.

Ziad Jazz Quartet (Bechtler Museum) The Ziad Jazz Quartet explores the great jazz pianists.

Dylan LeBlanc, The Jenkins Twins (Evening Muse) LeBlanc’s new record Renegade is intense rock ‘n’ roll, the culmination of a decade on the road.

Cosmic Collective Leone, iRa evRywhR (Snug Harbor) Cosmic Collective is a mutable, genre-bending jazz ensemble.

Bob Fleming & Cambria Iron Co., Mahto & The Loose Balloons, Merit Badge (Petra’s) Bob Fleming & Cambria Iron Co. are purveyors of gritty Southern rock ‘n’ roll.

The Bill Hanna Legacy Jazz Session (Petra’s) A rotating crew of top jazz players pay tribute to charlotte’s godfather of jazz.

WED SEPTEMBER 22

THE DEAD TONGUES W/ ALEXA ROSE

THU SEPTEMBER 23

STEPHEN DAY

WED SEPTEMBER 29

CRUMBSNATCHERS

W/ FORTEZZA & JORDYN ZAINO THU SEPTEMBER 30

W/ CARLY BANNISTER SAT SEP TEMBER 25

SEAN MCCONNELL

LESLIE MENDELSON W/ CASEY NOEL

FRI OCTOBER 1

W/ AARICK

THE BONES OF J.R. JONES THE 502’S COULD IT GET BETTER THAN THIS TOUR

SUN SEPTEMBER 26

SAT OCTOBER 2

W/ TRISTAN BUSHMAN

NiiTO

SAM ON SUNDAY

W/ STILLHOUSE JUNKIES mon september 27

FIND YOUR MUSE OPEN MIC

TUE SEPTEMBER 28

JORDY SEARCY

W/ WILLIAM HINSON & MARIELLE KRAFT eveningmuse.com

DYLAN LEBLANC

W/ THE JENKINS TWINS

THE PINKERTON RAID

W/ SWAY IN THE TREES (STEVEN HALL) TUE OCTOBER 5

JACKIE VENSON

3 3 2 7 n d av i d s o n s t, c h a r l o t t e n c

POWERED BY

CATAWBA RIVER ACTIVITIES KAYAKING & CANOEING

Kayaking, Canoeing and tubing are some of the most popular river activities, save for fishing. The Catawba River Blueway hosts 200 miles of flatwater and whitewater paddling routes and put ins. The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation’s website hosts suggested trails, trips, tours and scheduled flow releases from nearby dams for you to stay up on water levels and speed before getting out on the river. Launch points are accessible all throughout the Lake Norman, Mountain Island Lake and Lake of the blueway with kayak and canoe rentals available seasonally.

FISHING THE SHORES OF THE CATAWBA

Photo by Wes Maxwell

In order to fish on the Catawba River in North and South Carolina you must have a valid fishing license issued from either the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission or the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Beyond the license, fishing is free at all public access points on the Catawba River. Most access sites, and those managed

by Duke Energy, are open 24 hours unless otherwise posted while some areas that are managed through a lease to a government entity may have different operating hours. You can expect largemouth bass in rocky, shady areas near the shore with channel catfish and blue catfish all being the most popular species. There are brown trout fishing areas near the Lake James Dam from September to May. Be sure to check all fish-consumption advisories in your area before becoming a largemouth yourself!

Photo courtesy of Catawba Riverkeeper

BOATING ON THE CATAWBA’S LAKES

If you’ve been to the lake on a weekend in the summer then you know that this is the most popular water activity, hands down. Before getting out on the lakes and rivers with your pals, be sure to familiarize yourself with all North and South Carolina boating laws. This is also an activity where it is very important to know the scheduled flow releases from area dams as well as the water levels. All of this information can be found on the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation’s website or the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s website.

Photo courtesy of Catawba Riverkeeper

STAND UP PADDLE BOARDING

Stand-up paddle boarding, or SUP as its commonly known, has become a wildly popular water activity in recent years and in the Charlotte area you have access to events like SUP yoga and river races like the SUP Stream Catawba River Race. There are outfitters all along the Catawba River that can provide you with boards, paddles and personal floatation devices if you don’t already have all the gear needed.

Photo courtesy of Catawba Riverkeep

SWIMMING IN THE RIVER

Swimming on the Catawba River and in our local lakes can be a blast for spring, summer and early fall water-lovers. The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation operates a summer Swim Guide program in which they test the water at popular swimming locations at six of our biggest lakes including Lake Norman, Lake Wylie, Lake James, Lake Hickory, Mountain Island Lake and Lake Wateree. CRF tests for E. Coli in the water, which is considered a better indicator of human waste. Results are posted on Fridays in a stoplight system (green, yellow, red), so you can make informed decisions about swimming over the weekend.

CATAWBA RIVER BLUEWAY Public access points along three Charlotte-area sections of the river

Photo by Kevin Knight

A MESSAGE FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JOHN SEARBY OF THE CATAWBA RIVERKEEPER FOUNDATION

“The most important reason for anyone to be involved in enjoying and protecting the Catawba River is that this is OUR RIVER! The Catawba River basin encompasses 5,000 square miles in 26 counties in North and South Carolina and these waters belong to the more than 3 million people who live in this area. The Catawba Riverkeeper exists to unify those voices so they are amplified to the same level as the private users, municipal users, utility users, and other interests who want to use our water.

It is a pretty cool benefit of working at Catawba Riverkeeper to get the opportunity to be on the water every single week and call it work. We get to explore many of the 9,000 miles of waterways in our basin in waders, kayaks, canoes, trolling boats, and motor boats to monitor, sample, investigate, and engage with our friends and neighbors who care about the water as much as we do.”

WHERE ARE WE IN CLEANING UP COAL ASH ON THE CATAWBA RIVER?

6 WAYS TO VOLUNTEER & CLEAN THE CATAWBA

RIVERSWEEP (OCTOBER 2)

One day a year when citizens from all over come together to clean up the Catawba-Wateree River Basin on the same day. Choose from 40+ cleanup sites across the basin. Sign up as an individual, a family, or register as a group. Learn more at catawbariversweep.org

BECOME A WATER WATCHER

Catawba Riverkeeper trains dozens of Water Watchers each year to act as eyes, ears, and a voice for our local waterways.

Scan me!

LITTER GITTERS

FISHING LINE RECYCLING

CRF is always looking for volunteer crew members to help maintain the Litter Gitter trash traps. Hours vary week to week, but are flexible. Cleanouts happen after rain events.

In partnership with PalmettoPride, CRF is launching monofilament (fishing line) recycling in several South Carolina locations.

They will need citizens to help monitor and empty recycling bins.

CITIZEN SCIENCE

YOUNG ALLIES OF THE RIVER (YAR)

Our series of articles and informational graphics about getting outside in the Charlotte area to be active on the Carolina Thread Trail network and Catawba River is presented in partnership with local orthopedic-care provider OrthoCarolina.

Online Map: tinyurl.com/catawbariverputins

Protect our waterways by helping the Riverkeeper collect data, monitor water quality, conduct research, and advocate for the River’s health.

Catawba Riverkeeper’s Citizen Science programs include: Water Watchers, Invasive Species Team, South Fork Survey, Swim Guide

River lovers ages 21-39 are invited to join Catawba Riverkeeper’s affiliate group for young professionals – the Young Allies of the River (YAR). Membership is $25/year and includes all the benefits of being a Catawba Riverkeeper member plus invitations to exclusive YAR events.

All photos courtesy of Catawba Riverkeeper

WED09_22

INTERGALACTIC SOUL OPENING CELEBRATION

Charlotte artists Marcus Kiser and Jason Woodberry created Intergalactic Soul, a look at America through the lens of Afrofuturism. Their story on a young Black astronaut has come a long way since debuting in 2014, when it showed at the McColl Center, Goodyear Arts, Spirit Square and the Gantt Center. It’s now featured in Constellation CLT, the Mint’s showcase of local artists. The opening party features a conversation with Kiser and Woodberry and a screening of the film, The Last Black Starfighter, with live accompaniment by Quentin Talley and The Soul Providers.

More: Free; September 22, 5:30 p.m.; Mint Museum Uptown, 500 South Tryon St.; mintmuseum.org

INTERGALACTIC SOUL Artwork by Marcus Kiser

9/22

9/23

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SAT09_25

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WED09_29

The Black Guy Who Tips is a podcast from the minds of Rod and Karen Morrow, a married, Black, Southern couple who dish on pop culture, politics and comedy. Rod and Karen have been together since they were 16 and have been married since 2002. The show has been mentioned in The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, WaPo, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg.com, Vox.com, BET.com, and Ebony.com. But surely their most meaningful media mention came when they were named Best Local Podcast in Queen City Nerve’s 2020 Best in the Nest. Surely.

More: $15 and up; September 23, 7:30 p.m.; Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St.; blumenthalarts.org

Curated by Forever Homes Co., which engages communities of animal advocates through creative retail and educational experiences for the modern pet lover, the Pet Pop Up Summit was launched to support local resources and small pet businesses.

The day-long event features an adoption fair, a retail market of pet business vendors, and informational sessions for fosters, pet owners and small pet businesses. Speaker sessions will focus on how animal lovers can support the pets in their lives, featuring local pet-business leaders, pet influencers and animal rescues.

More: $15; September 25, 10 a.m.; Camp North End; 300 Camp Rd.; camp.nc/events

“The more genres we can absorb ... the more people we can spread love to.” Raleigh-Durham-based alt R&B-soul-rock fusion band NiiTO write that they’ve “spent the last few years crafting a unique sound while becoming more in tune with themselves and the people of this world.” We’re not sure if that means they walked the earth like reformed hitman Jules in Pulp Fiction — or for that matter, Caine in Kung Fu — but with heavy influences from a variety of genres, NiiTO’s sound blurs the lines between R&B, rock, pop, soul, funk, jazz, blues and more.

More: $10-$12; September 25, 10:30 p.m.; Evening Muse; 3227 N. Davidson St.; eveningmuse.com

In January, we wrote that “indie-rock powerhouse Petrov pairs careening post-punk guitars and soaring pop melodies with a passion and professionalism on par with established national acts.” The Charlotte five-piece won Queen City Nerve’s Best in the Nest 2020 award for best pop-punk band. Add Riot Grrrl-inspired frontwoman and lyricist Mary Grace McKusick’s uncanny ability to unlock multiple emotions with haunting imagery and scalpel-sharp phrasing, and you have quite the rock show.

More: $8; September 29, 8 p.m.; The Milestone; 3400 Tuckaseegee Road; themilestone.club

‘THE BLACK GUY WHO TIPS’

Pg. 14 SEP 8 - SEP 21, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

‘THE BLACK GUY WHO TIPS’ Photo courtesy of Rod Morrow

NIITO Courtesy of NiiTO

9/25

PET POP-UP SUMMIT

NIITO, AARIK

PETROV, HOUSE & HOME, SUNTITLE, WOAH

PETROV Photo by Madelyn Blair

9/29

THU09_30

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Fresh off The Phoenix Suns’ historic NBA playoff run, and after 18 months without touring, former teacher and basketball coach Mega Ran poured his passion for hoops into a new album, Live 95, named after the popular sports-themed video game NBA Live ’95. The collection is due out Oct. 22, to coincide with the start of the NBA’s 75th season. (Did we mention that this guy is a big hoops fan?). The album combines autobiographical narratives such as “1995,” hard-hitting messages on social justice like those found on “Craig Hodges,” and playful love jams like “Tractor Beam.”

More: $18; September 30, 7 p.m.; Amos’ Southend; 1423 S. Tryon St.; amossouthend.com

The world would be poorer without pianists like Bill Evans, who fused hard bop with classical music; Art Tatum, who pioneered a flamboyant style that melded stride and swing; or North Carolina-born genius Thelonious Monk who went beyond the known musical universe with angular melodies and dissonant cluster chords. These masters may or may not be on the bill when the Ziad Jazz Quartet (pianist Lovell Bradford, saxophonist Ziad Rabie, drummer Kobie Watkins and bass player Ron Brendle) explores the great jazz pianists — but they should be.

More: $20; October 1, 6 p.m., 8:15 p.m.; The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art; 420 S. Tryon St.; bechtler.org

All of Charlotte should know Boris “Bluz” Rogers, director of creative engagement at Blumenthal, three-time Emmy-winning poet, 2010 Southern Fried Poetry Slam grand champ and coach of the threetime National Poetry slam championship team Slam Charlotte is committed to stretching the boundaries of poetry. Need more proof? For this program, Rogers leads students on a step-by-step creative writing journey during which they’ll craft and perform a poem using techniques acquired in the class.

More: $10; October 2, noon; Gantt Center; 551 S Tryon St.; ganttcenter.org

earned the soubriquet “Bitchfork.” It’s because their hipper-than-thou writers like to complain. However, their coverage of Detroit rapper Boldy James is positively ecstatic. “[James] and … famed producer [Alchemist] rejoin … for a spare, melancholy and psychedelic album, solidifying their partnership as one of the most rewarding team-ups in hip-hop,” runs their rave of Boldy James/The Alchemist. With lean, almost stoic storytelling that enfolds a well of empathy, Boldy James is one of the finest rappers working today. Take it from Bitchfork.

More: $18; October 4, 10 pm; Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St.; snugrock.com

MEGA RAN

MEGA RAN Promo Photo

9/30

TRIBUTE TO JAZZ PIANO LEGENDS

FAMILY FIRST: POETRY WRITING AND BOLDY JAMES, JAH MONTE There’s a reason music criticism site Pitchfork has PERFORMANCE

FRI & SAT10_01 & 10_02

BOLDY JAMES Promo Photo

10/4

Pg. 15 SEP 8 - SEP 21, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

BOB SAGET

We admit we relegated Saget to the ‘nice but lame’ scrapheap after he appeared in two of the most family-friendly shows network TV has ever produced: Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Then we saw his hilariously perverse take on a long-running dirty joke in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats. And that’s how some of us learned Saget is also an out-of-his-mind, Grammy-nominated standup comedian for over 30 years. From his HBO special That Ain’t Right to his scene-stealing cameos in Entourage, Saget’s comedy is always compelling when he embraces his dark side.

More: $30-$40; October 1-2, 7 p.m. & 9:45 p.m. both nights; The Comedy Zone, 900 NC Music Factory Blvd.; cltcomedyzone.com

THELONIOUS MONK Photo by William P. Gottlieb

10/1

BOB SAGET Photo courtesy of Behind the Velvet Rope TV

10/1 & 10/2

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE

PRETTY THAI FOR A WHITE GUY

Charlie Sullivan visits Latda Asian Food Market and discusses his cooking style

Pg. 16 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

BY TIMOTHY DEPEUGH

“I was throwing what appeared to be turds into a trash can,” he said. “Oh, and there was an elephant.

And a bad monkey.”

Charlie Sullivan was not recounting a dream he had the night before.

We were at Latda Asian Food Market on Brookshire Boulevard in northwest Charlotte, hidden in the back of a makeshift café that appeared to have once been a storeroom, when a little girl walked up to Charlie with her iPad to ask for help tending to the animals in her zoo. We had come for the food, and to be sure, the simple, concise list of Laotian dishes outlined on plastic menus made us both giddy with hunger, but it was this virtual zoo game that really brought us all together.

The little girl could tell that I was clearly interested in what was going on, too, so with Charlie’s work complete, she hopped over to me to save her penguins from drowning.

“I can’t save them,” I said. “They’re drowning because all of the ice has melted. Because of global warming.”

A beat of silence, a hint of dismay; even the photographer thought I had gone too far. But for me that moment would come to encapsulate our conversation that day — how when innocence meets reality, there is, for better or for worse, a transformation. Maybe that means the little girl will go on to be a scientist.

In Charlie’s case, I would come to learn that it meant navigating two global catastrophes to transform himself from a copy machine salesman into a chef making some of the most exciting Thai food in Charlotte.

Not another banker bro

“I’ll be the first to tell you, I’m not a chef,” Charlie insists.

I tell him I think he’s selling himself short.

I first met Charlie last year, shortly after moving “They were like, ‘We’re finally fixing our hiring to Charlotte, when I happened upon his Instagram freeze! Come up here! Get out of South Carolina!’” account, @spicywhiteboyclt. I was upset I hadn’t Charlie didn’t think twice. thought to take that name for myself, but I wrote at Once in Charlotte, he would quickly learn what the time that finding his account was “like finding many who have come before him (including me) the one four-leaf clover in a vast, beautiful, albeit have known for years, particularly in the years since devastatingly boring, meadow.” the Great Recession: that working in finance is not And you know exactly what I mean by that. all it was once cracked up to be. We traded war Close your eyes, think of any Thai restaurant in stories while waiting for our food.

Charlotte, and I bet you will be able to tell me exactly He mentioned a company he once worked for, to what is on the menu. Instead of pad Thai, though, and which I said, “They’re pretty ruthless.” a standard offering of curries in three colors, Charlie “Yeah, exactly,” he said. “I mean, it’s not a bad was serving up thoroughly researched dishes that were seasonal and geographically specific down to the precise neighborhood in the region of Thailand from which the dish originated.

In mid-Autumn, he cooked up a pork and pumpkin curry that I thought showed “a holy deference to genuine Thai flavors,” and those flavors “swirled together to conjure up a sweet, savory, and spicy potion that worked the kind of black magic only the best and most wholesome comfort food can.”

I was an instant fan.

But long before he would get to this point of casting spells on local palates, Charlie was selling copy machines.

PHOTO BY KENTY CHUNG NAM KHAO AT LATDA ASIAN MARKET Originally from Anderson, South Carolina, Charlie graduated from Clemson University in 2008 place to work if you’re into finance, but I’m not into with a degree in industrial management. Then finance, so I was just kind of … there.” about 45 minutes later, the economy crashed.

But still, it was good, steady work that afforded Even if the economy hadn’t been falling in shambles him the opportunity to be more thoughtful about around him, a career in sales was never going to be a what he really wanted out of life. It also afforded good fit. At 22, freshly shaven and wearing a clean, crisp him the privilege to travel to Thailand for the first suit, Charlie said it was like he was cosplaying as his dad. time, and that’s when everything changed.

“It just wasn’t going to work.”

As he bounced around from place to place, Two weeks in Thailand doing random call center work to make ends meet “Aww, that rhinoceros! I bet he was happy and waiting to see if the economy would ever awake before the poachers cut off his horn,” I said to the from its coma, he got a call from a friend working for little girl, pointing to her iPad, as our food arrived. a financial institution here in Charlotte.

A heaving, glistening mound of Lao sausages

quickly took our minds off the rhino. Each bite was a counterargument of how simple ingredients treated with respect can turn into something more meaningful and satisfying than a twee, tweezered bite of food on a $300 tasting menu. Eating a piece was like biting into a water balloon, with fatty juices bursting out, redolent of lemongrass. It took us back to Southeast Asia.

The most shocking thing I learned that day over lunch was that Charlie has spent all of two weeks in Thailand. It’s not enough to say he fell in love with Thailand during that short time. A more accurate way to capture the depths of how much this trip changed him would be to say that his entire philosophy of life was altered.

“The biggest realization I had was that everybody seemed happy,” he said. “It’s a welcoming country, yes, but more so compared to me — with my job and my things — they all seemed happier than me.”

The lesson he learned from that?

“Be happy in what you’re doing. I wasn’t happy in what I was doing.”

As Charlie recounted his two-week trip that took him from Bangkok to southern beaches and all the way back north toward Chiang Mai, more food arrived. Simply written as “pork larb” on the menu, those two words belied the profound depth of flavors, textures and heat hidden within, so much so that, upon first glance, it would have been easy to mistake this baby dragon for a sleeping kitten.

“This is delicious. This is awesome,” he said. “This is just like the northern Thai flavors I love.”

Which is why I had suggested Latda in the first place. One of the things I love most about Charlie’s food is that he understands and embraces the geographic subtleties of the country’s cuisine. He had told me before that he loved Northern Thai food the most, so having lunch at a place that serves food from Laos — the country that shares Thailand’s northern border — seemed like a safe bet. He once devastated me with a Southern Thai dry curry with flavors heavily influenced by that region’s proximity to Malaysia; each bite tasted sweetly and bitterly of homesickness.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You were only in Thailand for two weeks. It’s one thing to recreate a generically Thai dish, but all of those little geographical influences in the food you’re making — how do you research those when you’re so far removed from it?”

“I rely on people with more knowledge than me,” he said.

Back in the States, he set about creating a plan to make himself happy. Part of that involved getting out of debt, so he started working in a coffee shop to earn extra cash. Another part of that involved learning how to cook. “I told you, I’m not a chef!”

Pg. 17 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE

Charlie becomes Spicy White Boy

That name, it turns out, was a gift. One late night pre-pandemic, Charlie walked into a Thai The food in Thailand he loved the most wasn’t restaurant on South Boulevard where Harris Teeter the kind of Thai food that was readily available in is now. The staff were in the process of closing Charlotte, so he had to learn how to make it. down for the night, but they let him stay anyway.

“Luckily for me,” he said, “there was this whole The owner came over to chat with him, and when community of people, mostly on the West Coast, Charlie told her about his travels through Thailand that were already kind of knee deep in trying to and his love of Chiang Mai, she beamed and said, recreate these flavors back here in America, so I “I’m from Chiang Mai!” turned to them for starters.”

They instantly bonded. She brought out a steak salad for him that was as hot as the surface of the sun, which he finished with no problem, impressing the owner to no end. They never exchanged names, but when Charlie returned a couple of weeks later, the owner was there, saw him, and screamed, “Spicy white boy! You’ve come back!”

And he’s not going anywhere.

Though COVID hit pause on his pub plans, he and his fiancée did gracefully pivot to a weekly small-batch delivery service that regularly sells out. The success of that has led to pop-ups around town, which will grow in frequency come November after a month-long break to get married.

With all his success cooking Thai food, though, and a name PHOTO BY KENTY CHUNG CHARLIE SULLIVAN, AKA @SPICYWHITEBOY like “Spicy White Boy CLT,” Charlie is very aware that he’s opened Hitting the books and cooking Thai recipes himself up to claims of appropriation. he found from all over worked as a set of guiding “My goal from the beginning has never, ever principles that structured his development. “Once been to say that I can make Thai food better,” he says. you do that and wrap your head around those rules, “Like that woman a few weeks back who said she you have the ability to play around a little bit.” finally made Chinese congee taste better by putting His academic approach to learning about Thai blueberries in it? Stuff like that makes me so sick.” food had inspired him and his girlfriend (now He’s thoughtful and careful to describe his fiancée) to work toward opening a restaurant. But approach to cooking Thai food, insisting that he’s not a typical restaurant, more the casual but private not appropriating anything because none of those dining pub-type where people could drink beer, eat dishes are his. different versions of Thai street foods, and be happy.

Charlie pauses, lost in thought, and smiles.

“I wanted to awaken people to the fact that there’s “I’ll be the first to tell you, I’m not a chef. I’m more to Thai food than just curry and peanut sauce,” he just a guy who likes to have food, and I just want said. “I want everybody to love it as much as I love it.” to share with people these dishes that I fell in love COVID-19 had other plans, however, and his with, these dishes that aren’t mine, that someone burgeoning career change became just a hobby. else created. And I just hope that everybody sees “Suddenly I had to figure out how to do in a that and wants to join me on this journey to drink pandemic what I was already setting out to do,” he said. some beer and eat some delicious Thai food.”

“Maybe we do delivery? But I’m just an unknown guy INFO@QCNERVE.COM with an Instagram account that has a very catchy name.”

Pg. 18 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

LIFESTYLE PUZZLES

LIFESTYLE PUZZLES SUDOKU

TRIVIA TEST

BY FIFI RODRIGUEZ

BY LINDA THISTLE

PLACE A NUMBER IN THE EMPTY BOXES IN SUCH A WAY THAT EACH ROW ACROSS, EACH COLUMN DOWN AND EACH SMALL 9-BOX SQUARE CONTAINS ALL OF THE NUMBERS ONE TO NINE. ©2020 King Feautres Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

1. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What is the full name of the famous Barbie doll?

2. MOVIE: Which movie features a family home on Cherry Tree Lane?

3. GEOGRAPHY: What is the capital city of Bermuda?

4. AWARDS: For what achievement is the Folio Prize awarded?

5. MUSIC: What was the only U.S. Top 40 song that guitarist/singer Jimi Hendrix had?

6. ANATOMY: What connects muscles to bones?

7. TELEVISION: What is the name of the van in the animated series “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?”?

8. MEASUREMENTS: What does a candela measure?

9. FOOD & DRINK: Which spirit is sometimes described as the “green fairy”?

10. LITERATURE: Owen Meany is a character invented by which author?

CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 Gallery display 8 Bits of fabric, e.g.

14 “Quit that!”

20 Low-cost and inferior, informally 21 Apple ad catchphrase 22 For a short period 23 Actress Freeman who lived in a European gambling mecca?

25 Cello relative 26 Classic Ford 27 Animated one, in brief 28 Like some radio shows 30 Cereal grass 31 Palmist, e.g.

32 General --’s chicken 33 Two-masted sailboat painted bright red?

35 Oahu beach 38 IV flow 39 Land of ska 43 King or czar 47 Fluctuate 51 Really hurt the feelings of?

54 Aquatint, e.g.

55 Quaint newspaper sections 56 Very little 57 Enter gently 60 Actor Ron 61 Golf club 62 Saints’ org.

64 Like someone who has moved to America again?

66 Coup group 68 Like a black chimney 70 Nothing, in Latin 71 Parasite on a passenger flight?

74 Mil. rank

75 Sonar sound 78 Groom’s vow 79 Hound breed 80 Laugh loudly 82 Cut off with scissors 83 T-man Eliot 85 Be too busy for a health-resort visit?

89 Stun guns 92 Go to bed 93 Acclimated 94 Essence 96 Making a snug home 98 “Alice” waitress who specialized in serving Dad’s soft drinks?

104 Styled after 105 Peat source 109 Indisposed 110 Sporty Chevy 111 Clay lump 113 Vixen’s boss 114 Sight-related 116 Apt getaway spelled by this puzzle’s missing pairs of last two letters 119 Get even for 120 Follows 121 Discharge an egg 122 Usurer, e.g.

123 Typists in trials 124 Rode a bike DOWN 1 Zeniths 2 -- Island (part of New England) 3 Edgy 4 Ocean filler 5 German car 6 Ocasek of the Cars 7 Of the “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

poet 8 Fodder storer 9 “Move it!”

10 Bighorn male 11 BP gas brand 12 Carrier founded in 1927 13 La -- (opera house) 14 Rescuers 15 Hostess classic 16 “So that’s your game!”

17 Stove light 18 Of a pelvic bone 19 Extra inning 24 Chess piece 29 Classic Ford 32 Burrito’s kin 33 Very little 34 Sword sort 35 Nintendo game consoles 36 Not engaged 37 Petty of NASCAR 39 Actress Ryan of “Boston Public” 40 God of love 41 Bikers’ competition on a dirt trail 42 In no key, musically 44 Take -- (plop down) 45 Actor Keach of “Man With a Plan” 46 Errand, e.g.

48 Most hard and cold 49 Rights gp.

50 Reasons 52 Poking tool 53 Essence 58 Monogram letter: Abbr.

59 Final degree 62 Papa’s ma 63 Edible fruit part

GET BACK TO DOING WHAT YOU LOVE.

Pg. 19 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

# YO U I M P R OV E D # YO U I M P R OV E D

YOUR CARE. YOUR WAY. | ORTHOCAROLINA.COM PAIRS OFF ©2020 King Feautres Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

64 -- choy 65 Rap genre 67 Chest protector, of sorts 68 Holey utensil 69 Musical piece for eight 71 “-- life grand?”

72 Brain flash 73 Old autocrat 74 Slalom, say 76 Neck area 77 Alum 80 Bygone days 81 Former foes of Navajos 82 Forest buck 84 Labor Day mo.

86 Madre’s boy 87 Postal slot 88 Actress Best of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” 90 Chest protector, of sorts 91 Thieving type 95 Dress border 97 Southwest art mecca 98 Foe 99 Antipasto bit 100 Cindy Brady player Susan 101 Goes very quickly 102 Facade 103 Mature nit 105 “The Practice” actress Sokoloff 106 “Barry Lyndon” star Ryan 107 Situation 108 Filled fully 111 Singer Laine 112 A smaller amount of 113 Valuable sire 115 Conjunction in Cologne 117 Wordplay bit 118 Actress Best of “Nurse Jackie”

LIFESTYLE COLUMN

AERIN IT OUT

YOUR GIRL GOES BACK FOR GAMEDAY The return of football in the Queen City. Was I ready?

Pg. 20 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

BY AERIN SPRUILL

After a year and some change of watching sports virtually, I must say I missed the buzz of excitement that runs through the city on game day.

The atmosphere feels warm and tingly like a slight shock of static electricity after you’ve been snuggled up in a new blanket. And that’s saying a lot for someone who leans towards cheering, “Go sports!” while everyone else intently watches a “nail-biting match” of some sort. But I guess a pandemic can convert even the most fair-weather of fans.

A couple weeks before the start of the Panthers’ regular season and first home game, I received a text message with the image of a flyer inviting me to Lost & Found for a Carolina Panthers tailgate promo video from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. I glanced at it and the words “open bar” jumped out — a phrase I hadn’t heard or read in a hot minute! I responded toot sweet in the affirmative, fully ready to take on Sunday Funday. However, game day reminded me swiftly that she (read: I in *a squirrely Kevin Hart voice*) was, in fact, not ready for the shenanigans of game day.

My first misstep was going out the night before.

One thing I’ve learned as the years of nightlife have continued is that Aerin isn’t the spry chicken she used to be, and back-to-back days of partying are a no-go. I woke up Sunday morning and peeked through eyes crusted over with sleep, eyeliner and mascara. I performed a mental check-in and felt much better off than I thought I would, but still not 100%. I rolled over to check my phone, and it came as no surprise that one of my more spry friends was already well on her way to South End. I let out a deep sigh and rolled out of bed thinking, “Are we really going to do this?”

Around noon, which I call fashionably late but still gave me a full hour ‘til game time, a friend and I pulled into a lone parallel parking spot on a stretch of South Church Street. We approached the entrance, and while there was no line and a number

of people on the patio, I surmised that the invite wasn’t exclusive, which can be terrifying if you’ve ever experienced Lost & Found on a busy day.

We approached the bar, and just as my anxiety started to build, my eyes rested on a couple of familiar faces and my tensions were subdued temporarily. But, unfortunately, that’s when I took my next misstep. Instead of accepting defeat and sipping on water for the entirety of my visit, I decided to double fist with ice-cold water and a cocktail mixed with vodka.

As I mustered up the courage to take the first sip, my lips quivered, my mouth began to water, and my mind started to race as my eyes darted through the crowd of black and blue searching for the long escape route to the bathroom if my swallow didn’t go according to plan. Whew, the first gulp got down. My palms started sweating involuntarily, and I knew that I was a player hating the game, and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the open bar or the free brunch.

At the next bar, I mustered up the courage to order a cider along with bacon cheese fries. I slowly chewed on my favorite snack one fry at a time finding it harder to swallow with each bite. And by the time I was able to get five down, I glanced at my beer. It had begun to sweat and the condensation due to the warm day started to drip between the grates of the table onto my shoe.

I sighed. Another game that I missed every minute of. But just when I was in the midst of judging myself, the people watching — my favorite Sunday pastime — dragged me to the patio and lifted my spirits temporarily.

I heard a huge raucous inside the bar and knew right away the Panthers had scored. An angry Jets fan came bursting through the doors, face full of red, cigarette in hand and spit flying with every curse word that tumbled out of his mouth. This was followed by the sound of a car coming to a stop and a thick wet splash appeared on the ground beneath an open back passenger door. I turned just as the young gentleman emerged, the remnants of his mishap on his t-shirt. *chef’s kiss* I managed a solid chuckle and thought to myself, “I feel you, bud. Damn, I love game day.”

Needless to say, many lessons were learned from that first Sunday home game. The next time, I’ll be ready.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

HOROSCOPE

SEP 22 - SEP 28

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Decisions involving your finances might seem to be foolproof. But they could have underlying risks you should know about.

Don’t act on anything until all the facts are in.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Keep that keen Bovine mind focused on your financial situation as it begins to undergo some changes. Consider your money moves carefully. Avoid impulsive investments.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) You’ll need to adjust some of your financial plans now that things are changing more quickly than you expected. All the facts you need haven’t yet emerged, so move cautiously.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Personal and professional relationships dominate this period.

Try to keep things uncomplicated to avoid misunderstandings that can cause problems down the line.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) That elusive goal you’d been hoping to claim is still just out of reach. But something else has come along that could prove just as desirable, if only you would take the time to check it out.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) This is a good time to get away for some much-needed rest and relaxation. You’ll return refreshed and ready to take on the workplace challenge that awaits you.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Confidence grows as you work your way through some knotty situations. Watch out for distractions from wellmeaning supporters that could slow things down.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) Consider spending more time contemplating the possibilities of an offer before opting to accept or reject it. But once you make a decision, act on it.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) You’re in a very strong position this week to tie up loose ends in as many areas as possible. Someone close to you has advice you might want to heed.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) Congratulations. This is the week you’ve been waiting for: After a period of sudden stops and fitful starts, your plans can now move ahead with no significant disruptions.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) You’re in an exceptionally strong position this week to make decisions on many still-unresolved matters, especially those involving close personal relationships.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) The new moon starts this week off with some positive movement in several areas. A special person becomes a partner in at least one of the major plans you’ll be working on.

BORN THIS WEEK: You work hard and get things done. You also inspire others to do their best.

You would do well heading up a major corporation.

SEP 29 - OCT 5

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) You’ll soon have a chance to take a big step up from where you are to where you want to be. Check it out first. Remember: Even the Mountain Sheep looks before it leaps.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) This week brings a challenge that could determine the future direction of your life. If you’re ready for a change, accept it with confidence. A loved one supports your decision.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) A disruption creates a delay in completing your projects. Use this time to pursue a personal matter you were too busy to deal with before. You’ll find it will be time well spent.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) You still need to be on the alert for any signs of problems that could create serious misunderstandings. A more positive aspect begins to emerge toward the week’s end. Be patient.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) With things slowing down a bit this week, it would be a good time for luxury-loving Leonines to go somewhere for some well-earned pampering. Things liven up around Friday.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Single Virgos looking for partners are finally getting a break from Venus, who has moved in to make things happen.

Attached Virgos see their relationships blossom.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) You’ve been working hard to get things done. Now take a breather and recheck your next step. You might want to make some changes in view of the news that comes your way.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) The watchword for savvy Scorpios this week is “preparation.” Consider sharpening your skills to make the most of the new opportunity you’re about to take on.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) There might still be some loose ends that need tucking up if you hope to get that important relationship repaired. A new spurt of activity starts soon.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) It’s a good idea to keep the positive momentum going by finding and getting rid of anything that could cause you to stumble. Keep the path ahead clear and open.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) A period of contemplation is advised before you make your next move. Be sure that where you decide to go is the right place for you. A health matter needs attention.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) That new energy surge that hit you last week continues to send out good vibrations. Try investing a part of it in creating something noteworthy on the job.

BORN THIS WEEK: You like to balance your personal universe, and in doing so, you help bring harmony into the lives of the rest of us.

2021 KING FEATURES SYND., INC.

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SAVAGE LOVE POWER TRIPPING

Don’t overthink it

Pg. 22 SEP 22 - OCT 5, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE

I’m a 26-year-old masculine straight guy who loves exploiting the fantasies so many gay men have about straight men. When a gay guy is into me because I look like his straight-masculine-jock dream, it’s a power trip like no other. It’s always a specific type of bottom gay dude I seek out when I get on Grindr: a very feminine “thicc” guy with a pretty face and physical features begging for a dick. The kind of guy where from the right angles you can’t tell the difference between his big ass and a thicc chick’s big ass. And I always follow the same script: I send my dick pics, I make one of these thicc bottom boys want me, and I tell him to send me a video of him twerking like a stripper for me. But I don’t go through with the meetup.

I’ve experimented a few times and have gotten head from a few guys, but I have no interest in dick or fucking one of these dudes. I don’t want to harm anyone or live a lie, but I don’t feel queer or bisexual at all. I actually feel like I’m “earning my heterosexuality” when I do this. It’s like I’m proving to myself just how straight I am by teasing these gay guys. And in all honesty, I feel like I’m doing them a service because a lot of gay guys are looking for that rare, mythical thing — the straight and strict Dom top — and I can play that role. But on some level, this all seems pretty fucked up and I don’t know why I do this and sometimes I’m confused by it. I also worry this comes from a homophobic place. (“Look at this dumb twink, he’s so stupid and obsessed with dick he’ll do whatever I tell him to, I’m the alpha.”) And I guess it is homophobic because when you remove the intensity and power trip of being the straight male in this scenario, I just have no interest in guys at all. I know this was heavy. Sorry. But please answer my question.

ALLY LOVES PERSONIFYING HOMOPHOBIC ASSHOLES

“I don’t see any major problems with this, and I’m not fully clear on what he perceives his problem to be,” said Alexander Cheves, the famed gay sex writer, author and columnist. “For gay men, straight men can be a kink, and the reverse can also be true. Regardless of how he identifies, ALPHA enjoys dominating feminine gay

men, who he ultimately denies. Sexual withholding — denying and being denied sex — is part of many fetishes and is really hot. So this guy’s kink involves withholding and, like many kinks, it involves role-play. He’s roleplaying as ‘the straight strict Dom top.’”

And that’s fine, ALPHA. There are lots of gay men into “straight strict Dom tops,” as you already know, and you’re giving these men something they want. You’re not giving them everything they want — you’re not meeting up with them — but you’re not obligated to give them everything they want.

“We all enter Grindr chats willingly, and we should do so knowing that anyone we talk to may have no plans of following through with their promises to meet,” said Cheves. “Many queer men do the same — talk and tease with no intention of meeting — and for similar reasons. The guys he is messaging are chatting with him consensually, so I don’t see any consent violations.”

Now, if you were uploading or sharing the video clips these guys make for you without their knowledge, ALPHA, that would be a very serious consent violation.

It would also be a crime in many places. But if feeling powerful and/or powerfully desired is all you want, ALPHA, and these femme thicc boys are willing to meet that need for you, and you’re meeting a need for them, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing.

“Even the homophobia bit is not alarming to me,” said Cheves. “Shame, stigma and prejudice have their place in many fetishes. I think these things often lead to fetishes in the first place. So long as ALPHA isn’t committing violence against these men or causing them harm, I don’t mind that he likes degrading them. I like guys who degrade me and call me a faggot, and I don’t much care if this fun part of my sex life comes from latent homophobia in me or the men I play with.”

There’s a big difference between screaming homophobic slurs at someone on the street and seeking out gay men who enjoy what linguist John McWhorter described on my podcast as “theatrical subjugation.”

While homophobia unquestionably shaped the desires of the men who find your schtick appealing, ALPHA, you’re not promoting homophobia or justifying homophobic violence. Indeed, implicit in stepping into these roles — straight alpha top, gay submissive bottom — is your ability and, even more importantly, their ability to step right back out of these roles. While playing erotic games with homophobic themes won’t eradicate homophobia from the Earth (wouldn’t it be nice if it could?), a gay guy who consents to this kind of “abuse” gets to decide when it starts and when it stops.

“If ALPHA’s problem is ‘confusion’ — a concern that maybe he’s not fully straight — that’s something neither

TRIVIA ANSWERS: 1. Barbara Millicent Roberts 2. “Mary Poppins” 3. Hamilton

4. Literature written in English and published in the United Kingdom 5. “All Along the Watchtower” 6. Tendons

of us can help him with, as that problem boils down to a foundational debate on what it means to be queer,” said Cheves. “Is there a discernible difference to an outsider between a straight man who titillates gay men for fun and a gay man who does the same? Not really. This could be his inlet, his way into queerness, his version of samesex attraction.”

And if you were to decide you are some kind of gay or some kind of bi or a whole lot of heteroflexible, ALPHA, you wouldn’t be the first Dom top who liked feminine gay men but had zero interest in dick. Some gay bottoms are fine playing with tops who ignore their dicks; some gay men get off on having their dicks ignored. And since some trans men are gay and since some trans gay men are femme and since some trans men are subs and since not all trans men — gay or otherwise — get bottom surgery, ALPHA, that means there are lots of gay men out there without dicks for you to choose from.

“But unless he calls himself gay, he’s not gay,” said Cheves. “Being gay or queer isn’t really about the chemical processes of arousal in the brain and body. It’s a willingness to be one of us, to claim oneself as part of our tribe. If he doesn’t feel the need to do that or thinks doing so would be disingenuous—indeed, if he must be straight for this kink to work — then he’s straight. As long as he’s doing no harm — just having hot, consensual Grindr chats with guys before ghosting them — he can be whatever feels true for him.”

Alexander Cheves is a columnist for OUT Magazine and runs the popular Love, Beastly advice blog. His new book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions comes out next month.

Follow him on Twitter @BadAlexCheves.

I call bullshit on RUBBED’s letter and query about reporting her former massage therapist.

Business relationships can turn into friendships and friendships can turn into something more.

7. The Mystery Machine 8. Luminous intensity 9. Absinthe 10. John Irving

In this case, he fucked up. He should have been monitoring his emotions better, but she was a willing and equal participant in their evolving connection. But she says she “went into instant shock” when her “very close friend” of three years told her he had feelings for her? SHOCK? Did she call 911? She seems to want it both ways: she wanted him to be her “very close friend” while at the same time maintaining a professional distance. Her reaction could have simply been, “I don’t feel that way about you, and I can’t see you anymore.” I think your advice was correct, Dan, but something about the tone of the letter rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it was the total lack of empathy for her “very close friend” (sorry I can’t help myself) who has also suffered in this, even if it was a consequence of his mistake.

GETTING OUTRAGED OVER DUMBASS LETTER ON RAINY DAY

People are allowed to have a WTF moment when something blindsides them — and RUBBED sounded blindsided — but I agree that she’s overreacting. Also, her former massage therapist is already out of work, GOODLORD, as some other readers pointed out. The business RUBBED helped him get off the ground shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic — a pandemic that’s still raging, thanks to all the idiots out there who refuse to get vaccinated. Unless there’s a pattern, I don’t think RUBBED should report her former massage therapist to the licensing board.

My new book Savage Love From A to Z: Advice on Sex and Relationships, Dating and Mating, Exes and Extras comes out this week from Sasquatch books. Get it wherever you get your books!

Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage; listen to the Savage Lovecast at savage.love; mail@savagelove.net.

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