YES! Weekly - January 6, 2020

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FORMER PATIENTS ALLEGE TEEN REHAB PROGRAM IS ‘RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC CULT’ OLD TOWN DRAUGHT HOUSE P. 4

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Multiple former patients of a LOCAL TEEN DRUG AND ALCOHOL REHAB PROGRAM allege that it not only isolates its members, demands obedience, and teaches that homosexuality is a delusion, but that its staff and founders regularly insults African-Americans and Latinx people in crude terms. “THEY ARE A RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC CULT,” alleged Liz Nickerson, a 32-year-old Greensboro native now living in Oregon.

EDITORIAL Editor KATIE MURAWSKI katie@yesweekly.com Contributors IAN MCDOWELL MARK BURGER KATEI CRANFORD

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Kayne Fisher is back where he started 24 years ago, and happy about it. The week before Christmas, I visited Fisher at OLD TOWN DRAUGHT HOUSE at 1205 Spring Garden St., opposite UNCG, the tavern Fisher had opened with Chris Lester in 1996.

5 For the past three years, it has been an honor and privilege to serve as the first woman and youngest person to hold the title of STAFF WRITER/EDITORIN-CHIEF of YES! Weekly newspaper, but to further quote the song, “to everything there is a season.” Helping tell 300 or more stories from the Triad community has been a dream fulfilled for me. I’m no good at goodbyes, so writing this final “Letter From the Editor” column is bittersweet. However, I feel totally at peace knowing that YES! Weekly will be in good hands when Chanel Davis takes command as the next editor-inchief.

6 With a handful of short films and a smallish role in Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) to her credit, actress Claire Dunne establishes herself as a leading lady in Herself, for which she penned the story and teamed with Malcolm Campbell on the

screenplay. Herself is Dunne’s first script and it’s a good one. It’s not a true story but it could be.

7 ...just as the rain is often inconvenient it also reveals what’s beneath the surface.

I firmly believe this past Christmas allowed us to refocus on the DEEPER MEANING of the holiday.

13 A new year brings new hope for Triad venues with congress passing the “SAVE OUR STAGES ACT,” bringing $15 billion in relief to the live performance industry.

“We’re thrilled that the plight of independent theatres has been recognized and action has been taken,” said Brian Gray, Executive Director of the Carolina Theatre...

14 As the days of 2020 draw to a close, teen songwriter and producer, CAMERON LANE, looks ahead to 2021, her last semester of highschool and new singles along the way. A senior in the Music Production program at Weaver Academy, lane enjoys tying heartfelt lyrics to indiesynth pop tracks, with a discography that plays like adolescence on record. “It’s my coming-of-age movie,” she said...

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DISTRIBUTION JANICE GANTT KYLE MUNRO SHANE MERRIMAN ANDREW WOMACK We at YES! Weekly realize that the interest of our readers goes well beyond the boundaries of the Piedmont Triad. Therefore we are dedicated to informing and entertaining with thought-provoking, debate-spurring, in-depth investigative news stories and features of local, national and international scope, and opinion grounded in reason, as well as providing the most comprehensive entertainment and arts coverage in the Triad. YES! Weekly welcomes submissions of all kinds. Efforts will be made to return those with a self-addressed stamped envelope; however YES! Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. YES! Weekly is published every Wednesday by Womack Newspapers, Inc. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. Copyright 2021 Womack Newspapers, Inc.

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voices

Remembering ‘Mary Ann,’ Dawn Wells

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n the annuals of pop culture there have been three great debates: Coke or Pepsi? Ford or Chevy? Ginger or Mary Ann? The answers to the first two questions may never be settled, but the third is a no-brainer. The overwhelming majority of men and women everywhere prefer girl-nextdoor Mary Ann Summers, a fictional Jim Longworth character from the 1960s comedy series, Gilligan’s Island, played expertly by Dawn Wells. Dawn was a Longworth stage and screen actress, a teacher, at Large and author of What Would Mary Ann Do? Dawn Wells passed away on Dec. 30, 2020, from complications of COVID-19. She was 82.

Dawn Wells was born Oct. 18, 1938, in Reno, Nevada.

Her father Joe was part owner in a Las Vegas hotel, and her mother Evelyn was a homemaker, and a bit over protective of her daughter. “My mother knew where I was every single second. My junior year in college, I’m driving from Reno to Seattle with my boyfriend, and the highway patrol pulls us over. I rolled down the window and the policeman said, ‘Is there a Dawn Wells in the car?’

‘Yes’, I said. ‘Call your mother,’ he said (Dawn laughs)”.

Dawn won the Miss Nevada contest in 1959, competed in the Miss America pageant, and then caught the acting bug in college. Soon afterward, she found steady work on television; often guest starring in Westerns like Cheyenne, Maverick, Wagon Train, and many others. She was a natural fit for Westerns because her great, great grandfather was a stagecoach driver, and Dawn had ridden horses since she was a child. “I remember one of the first western episodes I did, they asked me, ‘Can you drive a buckboard?’ I hadn’t driven a buckboard in my life, but I said ‘Of course I can!’ My horse got away and they had to come get me (laughs).”

Dawn portrayed Mary Ann from 1964 until 1967, but thanks to syndication, Gilligan’s Island has been playing somewhere in the world ever since. As a result, Dawn became one of the most recognizable actresses on the planet, and was in constant demand at nostalgia conventions and on talk shows.

I first met Dawn in 2013 when she attended the West-

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Jim with Dawn Wells (“Mary Ann” from Gilligan’s Island) ern Film Festival in Winston-Salem. We re-connected five years later when she performed at the High Point Theatre to promote her book.

couldn’t even show my navel. We’ve come a long way. If we were doing the show today, we’d all be living in the same hut (laughs)”

JL: Why did you write the book in the first place?

JL: Your touring show is for the entire family, especially for fans of Gilligan’s Island, but what do you want the audience to take away from your presentation?

DW: Because we don’t have a Mary Ann today, and I think it’s very difficult being a parent, or a best friend.

There are no guidelines. My generation was pretty black and white. There were no drugs, no sex before marriage.

Now with all of the temptations and all of the permissiveness everywhere, it’s much harder to raise a child.

But there still needs to be a guideline behind it, and I think that’s Mary Ann. JL: Mary Ann herself had a pretty good upbringing because she never engaged in intimate relations with the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.

DW: Back then there was never any romance. They

DW: When you’re in the audience, I want you to know that I’m relating to you. I’m not talking to you, I’m one of you, and that’s what I feel Mary Ann is. And what do I want you to take away from it? Don’t lose the values you’ve been raised with.

That’s pretty good advice from America’s girl next door. Rest in peace, Dawn. !

JIM LONGWORTH is the host of Triad Today, airing on Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. on ABC45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 11 a.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15).

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Kayne Fisher returns to Old Town Draught House and his first dream

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ayne Fisher is back where he started 24 years ago, and happy about it.

The week before Christmas, I visited Fisher at Old Town Draught House at Ian McDowell 1205 Spring Garden St., opposite UNCG, the tavern Fisher had Contributor opened with Chris Lester in 1996.

“Chris and I were college students, fast friends, and roommates,” Fisher said. “We’d been working at American Wholesale Beverage, loading trucks after class, and like so many college kids, we had this dream of opening a bar.”

Unlike so many college kids, they did.

“During the years we’d been working at American Wholesale, more and more microbeers had started coming into the warehouse – Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada and others – and at first, nobody knew what this was. But we tried it and liked it and wanted to sell it ourselves.”

The young men did their research and due diligence, talked to veterans of the industry, and decided where they wanted to go conceptually.

“Fortunately for us, the timing was right.

Bill Sherrill, who owned Spring Garden Bar and Grill in this location, had decided to move more into the brewing side with Red Oak. So, this became available, and we bought it, opening Old Town Draught House on July 4, 1996, and selling American microbeers on tap. Now, of course, that’s all over the place, but nobody was doing it then, opening a place with 17 draft beers on tap. People would come in and stare at the funky taps like they’d never seen such a thing. They’d go, what is all this, and I’d say this is microbeer, and they’d say, what the hell is that?”

But from the start, Fisher knew he wanted Old Town to be known for more than beer, no matter how exotic his variety seemed then.

“Sure, we were unique at the time, at least in the Triad, but I knew that wouldn’t last. I knew that it would catch on, and that everybody would soon be doing it, which is exactly what happened, and from the start, I decided that would So, separate us from those who came afterwards, other than this fantastic location, would be the food.”

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JANUARY 6-12, 2021

Fisher said that, in the late ‘90s, bar food tended to be an afterthought.

“Most places weren’t prepping fresh daily, weren’t making their own salad dresses, their own sauce. They were bringing in pre-packaged stuff, pre-packages sauces, pre-packaged produce, pre-packaged meat. What we wanted to do, from the very start, was patty our own burgers, make our own dresses, everything fresh.

And so, we did.”

Fisher believes the result surprised people, and really established his clientele.

“They were So, coming in for the uniqueness of the microbeer, but then they were like, holy cow, this bar food is good! And that’s when we really started putting everything together. It really elevated it to a quintessential neighborhood tavern. My definition of a tavern, as opposed to a bar, or even a draft house, is that a tavern is a food and drink establishment. The food is very important here. It was then, and is even more so now.”

So, why did he leave?

“After settling in, Old Town became very successful. We opened a second place in Winston-Salem. First Street, different name, but same idea. That led us in 2000 to open the Tap Room on Battleground.

Smaller, but kind of the same idea. Then, in the late 90s and early 2000s, there was this morphing of microbeer into craft beer, this movement coming in from the West Coast. And we thought, here we are serving all these other people’s great craft beer, so why don’t we brew our own?”

Fisher and Lester opened Natty Greene’s on Elm Street in 2004.

“The original plan, which I sometimes wish we had stuck to, was that Natty Greene’s downtown would supply the beer just to Old Town, First Street and Tap Room. That changed in 2005 when more people wanted it, and we had to make a decision. So, we decided to sell Old Town, First Street and Tap Room so we could finance expanded production.”

Fisher said that selling Old Town as particularly bittersweet.

“It was our first place and we loved it.

But we ended up selling to former staff members, which made it more sweet than bitter, and they bought all three places.

We started working on the production facility over on Gate City Boulevard that opened in late 2006. The brand expanded pretty good throughout North Carolina and beyond.”

Then, after twenty-two years, Fisher and

Lester found their dreams diverging, and the partnership ran its course, although the men remained friends.

“Dreams differ over time, and it really comes down to where the passion is,” said Fisher with the look of a man who’s been thinking about how the past becomes the future. “My passion has always been food. That’s what I said in ’96, that this microbeer thing was great, but it was ultimately the food that would keep people coming back here. Chris is a beer guy and I’m a food guy.”

The parting of ways also became a trade.

“I took the Revolution Mill project and created Kau Restaurant and Butchery. As part of the trade, he got all things Natty Greene’s, while I got the projects over at Revolution Mill and the physical property of Old town. But never in a million years did I expect to be back on the operations side of it.”

And then the pandemic happened.

“This property still had the same tenant, Matthew Lipp, whom we’d sold this place to in 2005, and everything was good until 2020. Chris and I had separated in 2018, and I was focusing on whatever I needed to do to help Matty. At the beginning of the fist shut-down, I reached out to him and said, hey man, these are crazy times, but I wanted to let you know the bank has given me a reprieve on the mortgage until July, and I’m going to pass that along to you.”

Fisher said Lipp had purchased Yum Yum Better Ice Cream and Hot Dogs next door, and wanted to focus on that.

“Matty said, ‘yeah, these are crazy times and it got me thinking, you want Old Town back?’ So that’s what started it. I said, ‘God bless you, man. I didn’t feel like chasing a tenant and all that.’ Not in this year. So, I let him out of his lease and didn’t charge him any back rent. I loved this place and decided to take a chance on it during what’s the worst time in American restaurant history, or at least since World War II. But COVID aside, I think Matty was ready to move on, and I’m glad I was able to come back in.

Just to bring Old Town back to its tavern status, after it had kind of transitioned into a bar, over the course of 15 years, I wanted to bring it back to that vibe. So, that’s what I’m doing.”

Fisher is well aware that this is a uniquely challenging time, but he said that he’s learned a lot in the 24 years since he opened Old Town with Lester.

“The cool thing about this place is that, even with adding some nuances just because of evolution and the way things have changed on the food side of things in Greensboro, it’s still Old Town. It still has the same vibe it’s had since 1996. It’s still the quintessential neighborhood tavern.

It may be the only place on the East Coast that is a free-standing independently owned tavern on a campus. So that’s really cool, and I’m happy to be back.” !

IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

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Letter From The Editor: ‘To everything there is a season’ As I sit here and pen my last “Letter From the Editor” I am thinking of lyrics from the anti-war, biblical Byrds’ bop, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven A time to build up, a time to break down Katie Murawski A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together Editor To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven A time of love, a time of hate A time of war, a time of peace A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing The meaning of this song is clear: as one season passes another takes its place— that is the natural order of all things. The year 2020 certainly was “a time to break down,” “a time to mourn,” “a time to cast away stones,” “a time of hate,” “a time of war,” and thanks to social distancing, “a time to refrain from embracing.”

Hopefully, it’s safe to assume that the year 2021 will be “a time to build up,” “a time to gather stones together,” “a time of love,” “a time of peace,” and “a time you may embrace.”

For the past three years, it has been an honor and privilege to serve as the first woman and youngest person to hold the title of staff writer/editor-in-chief of YES! Weekly newspaper, but to further quote the song, “to everything there is a season.”

Helping tell 300 or more stories from the Triad community has been a dream fulfilled for me. I’m no good at goodbyes, so writing this final “Letter From the Editor” column is bittersweet. However, I feel totally at peace knowing that YES! Weekly will be in good hands when Chanel Davis takes command as the next editor-inchief.

Chanel will be making history as the paper’s first African-American woman to hold the position. As previously reported, I chose Chanel as one of YES! Weekly’s People of 2020 because of her hard work in the Triad community as a dedicated journalist and media mogul.

Chanel is also the founder of her own public relations firm called Humbly Press’d, the president of the Triad Association of Black Journalists, and the mother of a 13-year-old.

Chanel considers herself a news-person at heart because she loves informing the public of what’s going on in their communities and why it’s important. And she’s always been that way—growing up, Chanel said her mom, a creative disciplinarian, would take away her 60 Minutes privileges when she acted up. Her journey in journalism began while she was a non-traditional student at North Carolina A&T University.

A self-proclaimed “hometown girl,” Chanel interned at her hometown paper, the High Point Enterprise, where they offered her a permanent position if she WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

Chanel Davis, YES! Weekly’s new editor-in-chief fast-tracked her journalism degree. And so, she did – balancing school, work, and being a single mom with a daughter about to enter kindergarten.

Freelancing soon became a passion for Chanel as she began garnering bylines with YES! Weekly; The Chronicle, a Black-owned publication in Winston-Salem; and the Carolina Peacemaker, a Black-owned paper in Greensboro. She’s also landed spots in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution via McClatchy Wire Services and the North Carolina Lawyer Magazine, a flagship publication of the North Carolina Bar Association.

In 2020, Chanel pivoted her passion for freelancing into a communications business, Humbly Press’d, working to impact social media marketing, analytics, and public relations strategies with brands such as Truliant Federal Credit Union, Winston-Salem Fashion Week, Mogul Movement, Williams Memorial CME Church, The Box Office restaurant and Triad Minority Business Expo.

Chanel is an active board member of Healthy Guilford,

a member of her child’s Parent Teacher Association group, and her church.

Chanel’s experience and success speak for itself, and YES! Weekly is lucky to have her as the next EIC. When I first started, Chanel took me under her wing and helped me get acclimated to the Triad by introducing me to all kinds of folks in the community. It feels almost full-circle that I get to return the favor and introduce her to the wonderful readers of a newspaper in which I poured my blood, sweat, and tears.

Chanel’s diligence, determination, and dedication will illuminate in her work as the paper’s new editor, and I can’t wait to read all of the stories she will share. !

KATIE MURAWSKI is the editor-in-chief of YES! Weekly. Her alter egos include The Grimberlyn Reaper, skater/public relations board chair for Greensboro Roller Derby, and Roy Fahrenheit, drag entertainer and selfproclaimed King of Glamp.

JANUARY 6-12, 2021

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Rebuilding her life, all by Herself

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ith a handful of short films and a smallish role in Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) to her credit, actress Claire Dunne establishes herself Mark Burger as a leading lady in Herself, for which Contributor she penned the story and teamed with Malcolm Campbell on the screenplay.

Herself is Dunne’s first script and it’s a good one. It’s not a true story but it could be.

Dunne portrays Sandra Kelly, a workingclass Irish lass attempting to rebuild her life after fleeing hair-trigger husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson). With two young daughters in tow, Sandra is basically at the mercy of the welfare system, which provides her with housing support while she juggles a variety of part-time jobs.

This is, of course, an underdog story.

It’s one individual against the System, and the audience’s sympathies are with Sandra from the get-go. When she hatches the idea to build her own house, on property unexpectedly granted her by one of her employers, it’s impossible not to hope she can pull it off, despite the odds stacked against her.

Yet, Herself manages to be uplifting without wallowing in melodramatic mushiness. The story is well-paced, the characters believable, the situations credible. The film doesn’t reach for a deeper or higher meaning because it doesn’t have to. What’s there is enough, and enough of it rings true that its occasional lags are easily overlooked.

Under the compassionate direction of Phyllida Lloyd (also an executive producer), who earlier helmed the frothy box-office blockbuster Mamma Mia! (2008) and guided Meryl Streep to her third Academy Award playing Margaret Thatcher in 2011’s The Iron Lady, in which Streep was far better than the overall film, the film maintains a solid footing throughout.

Herself is Lloyd’s first feature since in

nearly a decade, and reunites her with Dunne, with whom she worked in on The Donmar Warehouse’s All-Female Shakespeare Trilogy (2018), a self-explanatory mini-series in which only women embod-

ied characters created by The Bard. Theirs has proved a fruitful collaboration.

Although Dunne is the central figure and principal architect of the proceedings – in more ways than one – hers is not the only noteworthy turn in the film. Like her character, she’s got a solid support system here: Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O’Hara are delightful and touching as her daughters, Harriet Walter is stalwart and sympathetic as her employer-turned-surrogate-mother, and Conleth Hill imbues his initially gruff and reluctant building contractor with a grizzly heart. Even Anderson, as Sandra’s seething ex-husband, registers as human.

At heart, Herself’s message is that it’s never too late to start over. That can be construed as a message of consolation or empowerment, and that message comes across with clarity and genuine feeling.

Herself is playing at RED Cinemas (1305 Battleground Ave., Greensboro) and will be available on Amazon Prime later this month. !

See MARK BURGER’s reviews of current movies on Burgervideo.com. © 2021, Mark Burger.

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EAT IT!

An inconvenient Christmas reveals true meaning of the holiday

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BY ALGENON CASH

o many words have emerged to document our 2020 experience – “change,” “pivot,” and “new reality” are just a few that come quickly to mind – but “inconvenient” may be the best choice.

It’s the perfect word to describe a holiday season where countless individuals may have not seen family, close friends, or been afforded that once-a-year opportunity to return home. But just as the rain is often inconvenient it also reveals what’s beneath the surface. I firmly believe this past Christmas allowed us to refocus on the deeper meaning of the holiday.

Providence, a nonprofit program of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, operates a culinary training program and catering service.

At one time, Providence operated two restaurants in Winston-Salem; in September 2018 inside the BB&T Building, an 18-story glass skyscraper located at 200 W. Second St. in downtown WinstonSalem, offered breakfast and lunch to BB&T employees, downtown workers and residents. After BB&T merged with SunTrust, the megabank opted to leave the building and relocate staff, so the restaurant shuttered.

Tanglewood Park is a 1,100-acre recreation center and park in Clemmons located on the Yadkin River. It was once owned by William Neal Reynolds, brother of tobacco entrepreneur R.J. Reynolds.

“Mr. Will” expanded the existing Manor House built in 1859 to 28 rooms. He had no children, and in 1951, he willed the property to the citizens of Forsyth County.

Forsyth County and Providence quietly structured a deal earlier this year for the nonprofit to assume management of the Manor House and all other related amenities and event locations. Officially, it was renamed Providence Manor House at Tanglewood this past October.

This year, I wanted to find a place closer to home for my annual self-care routine, not to mention, we all should find ways to support the many struggling businesses in our local economy. When a consumer buys local products or services, more of that money stays in the community to help local causes. A recent study found that for every $100 spent at a local business, $68 remained in the city.

Jordan Keiper, son of Salem Tavern operator Rick Keiper and well-known local chef in his own right with a deep WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

Algenon Cash enjoing a drink by the fire at Providence Manor House experience launching new restaurants, has joined the Providence team with the Manor House being a key focus.

I booked a stay at the Manor House after Keiper gave me a tutorial on the vast amenities offered at Tanglewood – golf, dog park, bike trails, gardens, swimming, campgrounds, horseback riding, and tennis. Tanglewood is also home to the annual “Festival of Lights”, a 4-mile route with nearly 200 light displays, utilizing over a million lights.

The bed and breakfast inn offers beautiful and historic rooms that may cause you to briefly forget that you’re in Forsyth County. The wooded surroundings are enchanting— if you’re up early, then you’ll meet a family of around 30 deer out for their daily morning walk. Breakfast kicks off at 7 a.m. and Miss Bridget prepares a tasty omelet, pancakes, and candied bacon. I’ve also been told she has a secret recipe for the best homemade sugar cake in North Carolina.

Just a heads up – the Manor House does not serve lunch or dinner – so you’ll need to make other arrangements. Luckily, you’ll have some great options nearby in Clemmons, so plan to drop by Ketchie

Creek Bakery, Full Moon Oyster Bar, or Mossy’s.

I personally chose not to do any holiday cooking this season. With so many local restaurants working to survive the winter, it just felt cruel to give more sales to grocery stores.

For Christmas Eve, I wandered into Three Bulls American Steakhouse, located at 1480 River Ridge Dr. in Clemmons.

Owner Sammy Gianopoulos has been “strongly” encouraging me to visit allyear, but I’m rarely in the area. I ordered the barbecue-glazed baby back ribs, loaded salt encrusted baked potato, with macaroni and cheese. The food was good, but the service provided by general manager Kelly Sale and her squad was great.

For Christmas, I pre-ordered dinner from River Birch Lodge, located at 3324 Robinhood Rd. in Winston-Salem. They offered a Christmas plate for $18.95 – apple cider-glazed ham with cinnamon apples, smashed sweet potatoes with walnut streusel, gouda macaroni and cheese with bacon, Harker’s Island lightnin’ bread, green bean and mushroom veloute. Surprisingly, this meal held up very well after being nuked in an on-site microwave.

For the day after Christmas, I discovered 2520 Tavern, located at 2520 LewisvilleClemmons Rd. in Clemmons. Since it was my first visit and I was very unfamiliar with the menu, so I opted to try calamari as a starter – which was an excellent choice – and ordered the bourbon steak and blackened shrimp. I walked in around 8:40 p.m. to find out they closed at 9 p.m. but the bartender understood. Although she repeatedly encouraged me to dine in, ultimately I decided it was best to carryout.

The holidays are a special moment when we can slow down, which means we don’t have to be consumed with the hustle and bustle of airports and shopping centers. It’s a season that calls on us to give more than we receive and take notice of the less fortunate so we may share our light. More importantly, we should demonstrate gratitude for the natural beauty that we often take for granted throughout the year. !

ALGENON CASH is a nationally recognized speaker and the managing director of Wharton Gladden & Company, a consulting firm. Reach him at acash@whartongladden.com

JANUARY 6-12, 2021

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[NEWS OF THE WEIRD] BRIGHT IDEA

Chuck Shepherd

Acting on an anonymous tip, authorities in DeKalb County, Alabama, raided the Rainsville Wastewater Treatment Plant on Dec. 17 and discovered a large illegal winemaking operation that

appeared to have been in operation for a long time, reported WHNT. The next day, plant supervisor Allen Maurice Stiefel, 62, of Fyffe, was charged with unlawful possession of illegally manufactured alcohol and suspended without pay, according to Rainsville Mayor Rodger Lingerfelt. The operation was found in a little-used building at the plant, where, Lingerfelt said, “Things happen like that.” The sale of alcohol had been illegal in Rainsville until the city council

passed an ordinance approving it in September.

HIGH ANXIETY

As Delta Flight 462, en route to Atlanta, began to taxi away from the gate at La Guardia Airport on Dec. 21, passenger Brian Plummer noticed a man and woman with a service dog changing seats several times on the less-than-full plane, he told The New York Times, and heard the man say, “If I sit down, I’ll freak out.” Plummer soon felt the plane come to a stop, and flight attendants revealed why: The man, Antonio Murdock, 31, of Florida, had forced open an emergency exit door, causing a slide to activate, and picking up the dog, slid down to the ground with the woman, Brianna Greco, 23, according to a complaint filed in Queens Criminal Court, where the two were arraigned on a number of mischief and endangerment charges. “This doesn’t happen every day at the airport,” said Lenis Valens, a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. No one was injured in the incident, but the flight was delayed for hours.

AWESOME!

Didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas? The North Carolina Department of Transportation put nine vintage train cars up for auction on Dec. 15 that it purchased from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus after it ceased operation in 2017, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. NCDOT bought the cars for $383,000 to refurbish for use between Raleigh and Charlotte, but federal grants have enabled the department to buy new cars instead. “These cars have a great and amazing history,” said Jason Orthner, director of the NCDOT rail division. Bidding continues until Jan. 4, but at press time, there were no bids on the cars.

SURPRISE!

Andrea Ellis of East Moline, Illinois, was wrapping presents on Dec. 19 when she opened a package of garden flags she intended to give her grandmother and noticed something extra in the bottom of the padded envelope. It turned out to be a biohazard bag containing a Virginia woman’s COVID-19 test. Ellis told the Quad City Times that when she failed to reach the woman, she called police, who sent an officer to retrieve it, but 15 minutes later, he returned with the bag, saying, “I was told to bring it back to you.” A representative of the Rock Island County Health Department picked up the sample the next day

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JANUARY 6-12, 2021

and will try to return it to the Virginia patient. Ellis has also heard from a vice president at Kohl’s, where she bought the flags, who said the company is working hard to find out what happened and prevent it from happening again.

PERSPECTIVE

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is asking luxury goods company Louis Vuitton to stop selling a yoga mat made partially of leather, calling the product “hugely insensitive” because Hindus regard cows as sacred. In a Dec. 22 statement, Zed said the idea “of yoga ... being performed on a mat made from a killed cow is painful,” The Associated Press reported.

The mat retails for $2,390 online; Parisbased Louis Vuitton has not responded.

OOPS!

The 69 passengers who boarded Buddha Air Flight U4505 in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Dec. 18, expecting to fly to Janakpur, about 140 miles southeast, were surprised when they arrived instead in Pokhara, about 125 miles in the opposite direction. Weather and flight delays may have been factors, an airline spokesperson told The Kathmandu Post, resulting in “a miscommunication between the ground staff and the pilots.”

The passengers were promptly flown to their preferred destination a few hours behind schedule, and Buddha Air Managing Director Birendra Bahadur Basnet announced that a committee has been formed to investigate the incident.

NEWS THAT SOUNDS LIKE A JOKE

Micheline Frederick of Queens, New York, is still recovering from the wounds she suffered in what she described as a brawl with a squirrel on the front stoop of her home just before Christmas. “This was an MMA cage match!” she told WLNY. “And I lost!” Several neighborhood residents have reported run-ins with aggressive squirrels, including Vinati Singh, whose husband has been attacked twice, and Licia Wang, who was bitten on the arm while walking home.

A trapper has been hired to capture the rodents, and while squirrels are rarely found to have rabies, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Health is advising victims to contact their doctor if they’ve been bitten. !

© 2021 Chuck Shepherd. Universal Press Syndicate.

Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

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Playing the Greatest Music of All Time Local News, Weather, Traffic & Sports

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PROUD SPONSOR OF Your Local Music Checkup with Dr. Jon Epstein | Every Monday @ 7pm The Gray Room Session | Every Monday @ 8pm George Hamilton V Piedmont Opry Time | Monthly Show January 6-12, 2021

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The [hate] Group: Former patients allege teen rehab program is a ‘racist, homophobic cult’ Content warning: The following story mentions instances of racism, homophobia and child molestation.

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ultiple former patients Ian McDowell of a local teen drug and alcohol rehab program allege that Contributor it not only isolates its members, demands obedience, and teaches that homosexuality is a delusion, but that its staff and founders regularly insults African-Americans and Latinx people in crude terms.

“They are a racist, homophobic cult,” alleged Liz Nickerson, a 32-year-old Greensboro native now living in Oregon.

Nickerson contacted YES! Weekly in November about her time in The Insight Program, which advertises its “Successful Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers for Teens and Young Adults” in Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, Tampa, Atlanta and Peachtree City, Georgia. Nickerson told YES! Weekly that she entered the Greensboro program in 2004 and left in 2006.

“I and a bunch of other former members want to tell our story,” she wrote in her initial Facebook message. “It’s going to sound like one of those 1980s cults, but it happened to me in Greensboro— and they’re still in business, bilking parents and teaching kids to fear independence and others outside the program.”

Nickerson is not the only person to describe The Insight Program as a cult.

She belongs to a 450-member private Facebook group composed of former Insight patients, most of who make similar claims. Several dozen of the private group’s members, including its founders, live in Greensboro. Another person who has called the program’s practice and teachings “cult-like” is Jacob McEndollar, writer/director of the 2014 documentary feature The Group. The film is on YouTube, where its subject is described as “a network of adolescent drug abuse programs created by Bob Meehan and operated by his son-in-law and protege Clint Stonebraker.”

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The Insight Program, located at 3714 Alliance Dr. in Greensboro Stonebraker as owner/executive director and links to “related treatment programs” The Crossroads Program, The Cornerstone Program, and The Pathway Drug Abuse Program, and to Meehan’s book, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: Our Children and Drugs.

In The Group, McEndollar described Meehan and Stonebraker’s advocacy of “enthusiastic sobriety” as meaning that “in order for young people to avoid drugs and alcohol, they need to have as little restrictions as possible in other areas of their lives.”

Because of this, McEndollar alleged, “parents are encouraged to allow their children to smoke cigarettes, drop out of school, and spend as much time as possible with other members of the group.”

The Group depicts various programs founded by Meehan and run by Stonebraker, including Insight, as offering teenagers an environment with three stated rules: “no fixing, no fighting and no fucking.” But the film features multiple former patients and staff describing a program in which members are not allowed contact with anyone outside

the group, are encouraged to exaggerate and even fabricate their histories of addiction in order to keep parents paying for “treatment,” and must demonstrate absolute obedience to Stonebraker and Meehan.

Meehan first received national coverage in 1979, when Carol Burnett praised him for helping her daughter Carrie Hamilton overcome drug addiction.

Hamilton died of lung-cancer-related pneumonia in 2002 at the age of 38.

According to a 2013 Access Hollywood report, Hamilton acquired her lifelong nicotine addiction while in Meehan’s program. One of the first national journalists to compare Meehan to a cult leader was Dan Rather, in a 60 Minutes segment that aired Jan. 20, 1980.

On the broadcast, Rather described how Meehan founded the Palmer Drug and Alcohol Program, or PDAP, in 1972 in the basement of the Palmer Memorial

Episcopal Church in Tempe, Arizona.

“Some see Mr. Meehan as a miracle worker,” Rather said. “Others say he gets those youngsters dependent on him and PDAP in place of their former dependence on drugs and alcohol.”

In 1987, the Los Angeles Times described Meehan as “helping drug users go straight by counseling them on how they could have more fun being sober under his wing.” According to the article, the “fun” recommended by Meehan and his counselors included “chain-smoking, vulgarity, lying to parents and ‘fun felonies,‘ which were Meehan’s description of teen-age pranks ranging from bashing rural mailboxes to joy riding to vandalizing restaurants.”

In her correspondence with YES! Weekly, Nickerson alleged that the programs founded on Meehan’s teachings were still getting teenagers hooked on cigarettes in 2004.

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Clint Stonebraker in public video on Insight Facebook page

Insight founder Bob Meehan smoking in 2005 news broadcast “I barely smoked cigarettes before Insight—our small outpatient room always had 10 or so kids, all constantly smoking. I had asthma, and was hospitalized multiple times during Insight,” Nickerson wrote. “Bob Meehan preached that cigarettes may kill your kids at some distant time in the future, but drugs will kill them tomorrow.”

McEndollar’s documentary includes videos from when he was in the program, in which every teenager on screen is constantly smoking. It also contains WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

one reference to “treating” teenagers for being gay, in a segment alleging patients were pressured to recruit new members, regardless of whether or not they had drug or alcohol addictions.

“There was a girl who was homosexual, and that’s why she was in treatment— it wasn’t drugs and alcohol,” states a woman who describes herself as a former counselor. Her face is digitally distorted and she is not identified while onscreen, but the name Siri Vikan is listed in the credits.

Vikan, now an aviation engineer in Illinois, confirmed that she was the person making that statement in McEndollar’s documentary.

According to the 2005 Tucson Weekly article “Pathway’s Problematic Teachings,” Meehan was fired from the Palmer Drug Abuse Program due to Rather’s reporting and then founded “a complex web of active programs in Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, Colorado and North Carolina,” including Insight in Georgia and North Carolina, and Pathway in Arizona.

The article reported allegations of “forgery, homophobia, racism and coercion” by the program’s staffers, director and founder and that these programs were owned and run by Stonebraker.

Vikan was the first person quoted in the article, which opened by citing her allegations that the program’s leaders taught “that being gay was a symptom of addiction” and “victims of rape and molestation had only themselves to blame,” as well as the following statement about Black people.

“We were taught that they were lesser than whites,” Vikan said. “They wouldn’t get the program like we did.”

Counselors and former clients added that group members who didn’t embrace racist attitudes were eventually banished from the group. In a video clip on ontheemmis.com, Meehan speaks for at least two minutes on how he loves hockey, because no Black people play the game. That video, originally cap-

tured on hidden camera by investigators at the Phoenix-based ABC News 15, can be viewed on YouTube as “Bob Meehan – His Views on Blacks.”

The clip begins with Meehan singing about a “white woman with a [n-word]” (repeating the slur over a dozen times) before expressing his preference for hockey over basketball because the former sport is “all white men.”

The 2005 report by ABC News 15 described The Pathway Drug Abuse Program and the Insight Program as “based on hatred, intolerance and fear,” and Meehan as “teaching troubled teens how to hate.”

It quoted Dave Cherry, described by reporter Abbie Boudreau as Meehan’s former “right-hand man,” who stated, “There was a concerted effort to get people comfortable with the idea of using the n-word.”

Boudreau also interviewed a former patient who stated, “they tell you that you choose your life before you were born and that my being molested as a child was my own fault.”

Nickerson alleged she was told similar things in the Greensboro Insight Program.

“They said it was my fault for being raped when I was 12. Kids with birth defects were told they must have done something in the womb to deserve it,” Nickerson said. “They don’t believe being gay is a real thing,” she added, “they say it’s just this crazy idea you get from watching porn, not what you truly are.”

Jacqueline Leibler also made this allegation about Insight’s teachings. Leibler, who is now a Home Preservation Case Manager for an independent consulting firm, told YES! Weekly that she was once very familiar with The Insight Program’s inner workings, having been in various administrative positions for Insight in Atlanta and Augusta from 1997 until 2002, and for the related Step Two Recovery Center in Phoenix from 2002 until 2008. She also described the program as teaching that “homosexuality is a delusion” or “sickness” that kids “catch” from being exposed to pornography.

“Bob had this term ‘try-sexual,’ which he came up with and meant ‘try anything,’” Leibler stated. “He basically believed that people who thought they were gay/bi were just super sick and would do anything sexually.”

Leibler said that she now deeply regrets accepting what Stonebraker and Meehan taught, and that she lost a good friend who was harassed out of the program for being “effeminate.”

Bob Fleming, now a singer/songwriter and tattoo artist in Spartanburg, South Carolina, described Insight’s approach to JANUARY 6-12, 2021

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LGBTQIA+ kids as “Conversion Therapy Lite.” Fleming told YES! Weekly that he entered the Greensboro program in 2007, when he was “freshly 14,” and left it in 2010.

“The main thing that sticks out in memory is LGBTQ-members being told they weren’t gay, that it was a symptom of their addiction,” Fleming said. “I remember instances of LGBTQ-members being told to date outside of their orientation, and that it was part of their recovery.”

Fleming described himself as a kid who had been encouraged to lie about his addiction.

“Before I joined the group, I drank a little bit, smoked some weed, experimented with Adderall a few times,” he said. “But when I said that in outpatient, they kept pushing. ‘What else? That can’t be it or you wouldn’t be here.’ By the end of my first month in outpatient, I was telling people my drug of choice was cocaine and Xanax. I was 14, and had tried neither. It was a double-edged sword; if you did have a problem, you were denied the actual help you needed, and if you were just a kid who got caught drinking beer, it was engraved on your brain that you were an addict. God forbid you had other underlying mental health issues; they would disregard those as an aspect of your addiction.”

The person who spoke to YES! Weekly at greatest length about Insight and Pathway’s alleged racism was Christina Warden, of Heart Mind Therapy, LLC. Warden described herself as a former Insight patient and staffer who now treats survivors of Stonebraker’s and Meehan’s various programs, as well as similar organizations. Warden described herself as having entered the Insight Program as a teenaged patient, who then became a counselor. Nickerson said this a common practice.

“Staff is recruited from their patients,” Nickerson wrote in email. “Folks who have been there since they were 14 or 15 turn 18 and do six-week Meehan training and suddenly they are staff. They typically make less than $4 an hour. Clint pays for their group living in some crap apartment and they eat frozen expired food. Straight-up Tiger King bullshit.”

In email, Warden wrote that, when she worked for Insight in Atlanta, she directly heard Meehan and Stonebraker amongst other staff say the n-word and other derogatory terms for Muslim, Hispanic and Latinx people. Warden described Clint Stonebraker as frequently using the n-word.

“I once made the mistake of telling a co-worker that I found biracial babies to be among the cutest, and so in the next YES! WEEKLY

JANUARY 6-12, 2021

Tweet by Clint Stonebraker staff meeting Clint mocked me for it for maybe five to 10 minutes, saying I was going to ‘go make little [n-word] babies one day.’ On another occasion, Clint told me I was totally misled to believe that the Civil War was about the South’s right to enslave Black people, and that he intended to give me a thorough reeducation on American history.”

Multiple other sources told YES! Weekly that they witnessed Clint Stonebraker being explicitly racist. Vikan alleged that, after she told Stonebraker that palm trees were not native to Arizona, Stonebraker replied “that must be how all the [n-word] get to Phoenix; they hide up in the palm trees shipped from L.A.” Vikan also alleged that Stonebraker described another staff member as “nothing but a shit Mexican,” and shouted, “I’ll be fucked before I’ll have his little brown babies crawling around my fucking house!”

She claimed that “anyone who went through training” with Stonebraker heard similar rants. Eric Balog, who now resides in Roswell, Georgia, but was in

the Pathway program in Phoenix in the late ‘90s, told YES! Weekly that, when Stonebraker was at a 1996 birthday party for Balog’s son, Stonebraker held up a children’s book about animals, pointed to a picture of a gorilla, and said “look, it’s Emmitt Smith.” Balog also alleged that Stonebraker shared Meehan’s disdain for basketball, which like Meehan, Stonebraker derided as a “[n-word] sport.” Balog alleged that Stonebraker, like his father-in-law Meehan, used the n-word so often that “it was literally in every conversation.”

Catherine Smith, an aesthetician now living in Lakeland, Florida, told YES! Weekly that “I joined Insight in Atlanta on Jan. 17, 2004, when I was 14-yearsold.” Smith alleged that, when Stonebraker learned that Smith’s previous boyfriend was Mexican, “Clint and two other staff members would make fun of me for dating the ‘lowest form of human’ and Clint would say on a daily basis that ‘I only loved taco-flavored kisses,’ which is a reference to a South Park episode. He would sing those words

to me every time he saw me.”

Nickerson told YES! Weekly she witnessed the same incident that Smith alleged. Nickerson and Smith both alleged that the other Insight staff member who taunted Smith about her Mexican ex-boyfriend was Will Guest, who, at the time, was head counselor in Greensboro and is now Facility Director at Insight’s location at 103 Towerview Court in Cary.

YES! Weekly’s call asking for Guest’s response to these allegations has not been returned.

YES! Weekly has also made multiple attempts at contacting the Greensboro Insight Program and Clint Stonebraker via his website, email, and the @ ClintFCB Twitter account from which he regularly praises President Donald Trump and condemns mask-wearing and other COVID-19 precautions. (At the time this article went to press, no response has been received.)

The only person associated with Insight to return a YES! Weekly phone call was Josh West, whom this reporter contacted to ask if West was the young white man wearing Blackface in a photo provided by Nickerson. Nickerson alleged that West painted his face black at a 2008 Insight social function when West was the head counselor in Greensboro, and then laughingly referred to himself by a racist epithet.

West is now a counselor of Step Two Recover in Gilbert, Arizona, and acknowledged that he was the man in the photo and that it was indeed taken “at one of the social programs” at Insight’s Greensboro location, but claimed that “it wasn’t racially charged.”

“We were finger-painting and it got kind out of hand,” he said. “It just happened to be a black bottle of paint.”

Former Insight patients and staff members are building a website called “Enthusiastic Sobriety Abuse: An Expository Council,” which is scheduled to go live on Jan. 6. Nickerson gave YES! Weekly the following statement about their plans for the site: “Enthusiastic Sobriety Abuse is a website that provides resources and a community for current and former members and staff of Bob Meehan’s programs.

Visitors can connect with other survivors, submit personal stories, and there are people standing by to explain how to submit ethics or criminal complaints.

We also provide resources for families considering treatment for an adolescent or young adult.” !

IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

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ALEX MANESS PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE CAROLINA THEATRE

Sending out an SOS: COVID-19 relief bill gives new hope for Triad venues A new year brings new hope for Triad venues with congress passing the “Save Our Stages Act,” bringing $15 billion in relief to the live performance industry.

“We’re thrilled that the plight of indeKatei Cranford pendent theatres has been recognized and action has been Contributor taken,” said Brian Gray, Executive Director of the Carolina Theatre, in response to the #SaveOurStages campaign launched by the National Independent Venue Association (a grass-roots coalition of 3,000 venues formed in the wake of the pandemic). Andy Tennille of the Ramkat agreed. “It’s provided some hope at the end of a pretty bleak year for The Ramkat, and we’re guardedly optimistic that things will improve in 2021,” he said, “hopefully it’ll provide much-needed aid to the independent music venues that serve as the fabric of live music in this country.”

In North Carolina, Sen. Thom Tillis was among the 230 bipartisan cosponsors in Congress behind the Save Our Stages Act, initially sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Senate, and championed in the House

by Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY,) along with Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX.) It passed as part of the latest COVID-19 relief bill. Organizations eligible for assistance include: live performance venue operators and promoters, performing arts organizations, WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

theatrical producers, talent representatives, motion picture theatre operators, and nonprofit museums.

Distribution will be awarded through the Small Business Administration. Amounts will be equal to 45% of 2019 gross earned revenue, with a $10 million cap. Recipients may use funds for payroll and benefits, rent and mortgage, utilities, insurance, PPE, and other necessary business expenses.

Of the $15 billion program, $2 billion has been reserved for businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees.

And the first 28 days of award disbursements can’t exceed 80% of the total fund package.

While the act brings a bit of hope, Tennille expressed caution. “As grateful as we are, this isn’t a payday— it’s a lifeline,” he said. “If, and when, we receive funds, it will mitigate our losses from 2020 and provide a bridge to the next phase.

We’re still a long way away from being able to re-open at capacities that provide venues, like ours, the sustainability we need.“ Worries of the future, and major entities siphoning funds intended for smaller establishments, remain. Regardless, local venues acknowledge NIVA’s success.

“The organization has been extremely effective in advocating and lobbying for our industry and independent venues,” Tennille said, “it’s been wonderful to be able to connect with our fellow venue

owners and operators and be able to share information and discuss current issues relevant to our businesses.”

“NIVA’s success is an example of what can happen when many voices act as one,” Gray said. Praising relief efforts, Monstercade operator Carlos Bocanegra also highlights the importance of shifting expectations in a post-pandemic entertainment world. “While the ‘Save Our Stages’ initiative will undoubtedly help, none of us know what we’re up against in the coming year,” he said. “We’ve all been consuming art and music in fashions that don’t require in-person concerts. I’m curious to see if those trends continue.”

Each venue has indeed taken its own approach, pivoting activities and pausing live shows. The Ramkat doesn’t expect to be hosting in-person events anytime soon, though they’re excited to welcome folks back once it’s safe— and intend to continue their “Home Sweet Home” streaming series.

“The series has allowed us to continue our mission of presenting live entertainment in our community,” Tennille said, “it’s an opportunity for local musicians to perform while enabling us to bring a few employees back to work.”

At The Carolina Theatre, they’ve hosted roughly a dozen limited-capacity shows since October through the “Ghostlight Concert series,” thanks to assistance from

a grant from the City of Greensboro’s Community Partnership program. While those funds have been exhausted, Gray hopes to keep the series going.

“Other live events are on pause until our capacity is increased,” he noted, “which is currently limited to 25 for concerts and 100 for movies.”

Ever the masters of event reinvention, the weirdos at Monstercade continue to switch up their game like there’s no tomorrow. Which, as they acknowledge for venues, there could easily not be.

“We’ve been running on fumes, but haven’t given up,” Bocanegra said, noting his latest mission to explore avenues of promoting bands that don’t require gatherings. “Since we’ve been closed indoors, we’ve artistically redesigned the interior, and started utilizing the space as a production studio.”

Teasing a major announcement, Bocanegra admits he isn’t quite sure what the future of live music holds for the time being, but insists Monstercade will remain pushing artistic boundaries.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I have to grovel at Dave Grohl’s feet for getting us all money.”

The 35th episode of the Ramkat’s “Home Sweet Home” Series, featuring Spirit System, will stream live at 8 p.m. on Jan. 10. Abigail Dowd and Carrie Morgan are the next Ghostlight performers at the Carolina on Jan. 16. And Monstercade will announce their latest endeavor soon. All three spaces start the year with hope, thanks in part to #SaveOurStages. !

KATEI CRANFORD is a Triad music nerd who hosts “Katei’s Thursday Triad Report,” 5:30-7p.m. on WUAG 103.1fm.

JANUARY 6-12, 2021

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HEAR IT!

CAMERON’S SENIOR PHOTO

BY KELSEY MITCHELL

cameron lane eyes senior year and a new EP

A

s the days of 2020 draw to a close, teen songwriter and producer, cameron lane, looks ahead to 2021, her last semester of highschool and new singles Katei Cranford along the way.

A senior in the Music Production Contributor program at Weaver Academy, lane enjoys tying heartfelt lyrics to indie-synth pop tracks, with a discography that plays like adolescence on record. “It’s my coming-of-age movie,” she said of her catalogue, which teeters between teenangst and “an undercurrent of figuring out who I am.”

Growing-up on Disney songs and the classic rock tastes of her dad, these days lane often blasts Miley Cyrus’s cover of “Heart of Glass,” while looking to emulate a few of what she calls “the many badass women killing it in rock or rock-adjacent music,” including: Samia, Indigo de Souza, Phoebe Bridgers, beabadoobee, and Jade Bird.

Self-producing since the age of 13, lane’s home-recording setup has evolved YES! WEEKLY

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alongside her growth as a person—both of which have been impacted by life in 2020. For lane, the solitude and slowedpace helped foster new directions toward heavier territory. “Just being alone and in my own head, surrounded by instruments, with the time to actually start learning guitar and bass, I’ve finally figured out my chosen style of writing and producing,” she explained, “I’ve started favoring live instruments over MIDI when recording, so I’ve developed a more DIYsound as a result.”

As a songwriter, lane freelances her work-for-hire through websites like soundbetter.com. “Writing for others has given me a chance to flex my creative muscles in a lower-pressure environment,” she said. “I tend to get overcritical when writing for myself, so it’s fun and more laid back to take someone else’s idea or a mood that they want and just focus on that.” She’s been hired by artists like Canadian singer-songwriter V3LV, and Alabama rock group, The Dirty Clergy. lane also maintains a long-term collaborative project with Illinois teen songwriter, Jasper Bickers, who she met while attending a summer program at the esteemed Berklee College of Music.

Together, they’re working to establish fellow teen artist Hope Kim. “We’re all

great friends,” she said, hyping Kim’s newest single, “Flying Solo,” which lane co-produced and lended performances on guitar and backup vocals.

Writing for herself, lane carries a remarkable amount of introspection for a highschool senior. “My favorite way to write is after I’ve already been through something and I can see the whole thing as a bigger picture,” she explained of the impact the passage time carries over her work, ”it lets me poke fun at myself, and be able to separate who I am currently with who I was then.”

Noting her attraction to sentiment and nostalgia, “I enjoy that each of my songs can be like a little snow globe for moments in my life,” lane said, reflecting on the ways her writing often involves people she knows, and how that helps improve both her understanding of herself and the world around her.

“My writing will always have pieces describing that world,” lane explained of the folk elements she sees in her lyrics. “I like realism,” she added, “there’s something really cool and almost romantic about taking feelings or situations and putting them under a microscope.”

Under the glass of her latest singles, “Burn,” released in May, touches on jealousy in the face of social media.

“David,” released in October, reflects on

rocky relationships with adults in her life.

And Grayson, her latest single, serves as a beacon against loneliness. “I just want whoever listens to know they’re never, ever truly alone, and that someone out there is always thinking about them,” lane said of the track, for which she’s donating 80-percent of revenue to the LGBTQ Center Durham. lane remains secretive about the tracks scheduled for her upcoming EP, noting only that the first single is scheduled to drop in April, with the full-release aimed for July. Afterward, she looks to generate public interest, carrying her into college and toward the greater music career she sees awaiting.

As for high school, “I literally can’t believe it’s almost over already,” lane said, looking back. “I’m excited that my EP release coincides with graduation—it feels like a bookend to this chapter of my life. I’m ready to explore cool places and meet a ton of new people, and just keep creating new stuff. I’m really hopeful for what’s to come.” cameron lane’s latest singles are available now via bandcamp. Her services as a songwriter can be found on soundbetter. com. !

KATEI CRANFORD is a Triad music nerd who hosts “Katei’s Thursday Triad Report” on WUAG 103.1FM.

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last call

[THE ADVICE GODDESS] love • sex • dating • marriage • questions

DROP DUD, GORGEOUS

I typically avoid conflict to keep from having ugly conversations. I’m in an unhappy relationship, and it’s clearly not fixable. I always rely on the other person to end a relationship, even when it’s making me really miserable. Why do I do this, and how do I change? —Stuck Girl

Amy Alkon

Advice Goddess

Note that fighter planes have an “ejection seat” and not a “go down in a flaming wreck” seat.

Fighter plane seat design is a helpful model for relationships that have run their course. Facts don’t change because you refuse to acknowledge their existence.

Your approach — which I’ll call “nonfrontational” — is particularly counterproductive. Clinical psychologist Randy Paterson calls this a “passive” style of responding to conflict, driven by a goal of avoiding conflict “at all costs.” In fact, what you end up avoiding is not conflict but temporary emotional turbulence — the queasyfraidyanxiousness — that would come with taking steps to resolve it. So, by avoiding conflict, you end up having much more conflict for a much longer stretch of time!

But say you braved up this afternoon and told your boyfriend it’s over. It would feel miserable in the moment, and that misery would have plenty of company as

you did all those fun breakup things like sawing the couch in half. But then you’d be out — instead of neck-deep in still miserable for another three months, or as long as it takes for your boyfriend to notice he’s had enough.

Healthy assertiveness starts with telling yourself that you have a right to try to get your needs met. Feeling worthy might take some emotional renovation. If so, do get on that, either on your own or with a therapist. However, there’s a secret to asserting yourself, even as a person who’s long avoided it. You don’t have to feel worthy or even comfortable in order to do it. Admit that it’ll feel scary, totally foreign, and generally like a big pile of suck to assert yourself — and then do it anyway.

You might also apply this to other areas of your life, from friendships to work. When a situation you’re in becomes irreparably toxic and awful, there’s a reasonable thing to do, and it isn’t staying in it and having the cat join you once a week in a small private funeral for your enthusiasm.

FATE CLUB

I’m a woman in my early 30s. I grew up on a steady diet of romance novels, and I keep longing for the true “soul mate” love from my fictional world. No guy ever seems right, so I never feel that yearning, intense desire, and connectivity I’ve been searching for. I feel more of those emotions reading romance novels than I ever did with any boyfriend. Do you believe each person has a “true love”? Am I too much of a romantic? —Lonely Dreamer So, going by the romance novel stan-

dard, you’re just looking for that handsome, rapey, billionaire sociopath who follows you around like a puppy.

Unfortunately, a belief in “soul mates” is about as realistic. Each of us supposedly has our one and only perfect romantic match. Naturally, this person is conveniently located and culturally in lockstep and is never, say, a nomadic desert goatherd who thinks his life will finally be perfect if only he turns you into wife number eight.

A person who believes in soul mates has a “destiny theory” of love, explains social psychologist C. Raymond Knee. They think two people are either fated to be together or they’re not; whether a relationship is good or bad is beyond their control. They can be quick to give the boot to “lessthan-perfect candidates” and to see any conflict as a sign a relationship should be abandoned as “just another distraction in the search for perfection.” (I think he left out the word “endless.”)

Back here in reality, all humans are fallible, and being two different people (who are not dead) often means wanting conflicting things. People who understand this have a “growth” or “work-it-out”

theory of love. They believe a happy, satisfying relationship doesn’t just happen.

It takes work. It’s something two people create through what Knee describes as a paired process of “conquering obstacles and growing closer.”

Probably the best anyone can do in seeking a partner is figure out their personal must-haves (physically, emotionally, ethically, and any other essential “ly”s) and then find somebody with enough of them to make it worth working to build something together. Realistically, maybe your soulmate is that Mr. Wonderful who finds you beautiful while you’re drooling into your pillow — who you can sometimes hear from the next room chewing like something that eats hay out of a bucket. (All you need is not love but a pillow to smother him with and the wisdom to instead use it to stifle your screams.) !

GOT A PROBLEM? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@ aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com). Follow her on Twitter @amyalkon. Order her latest “science-help” book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence. © 2021 Amy Alkon Distributed by Creators.Com.

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