YES! Weekly - Mar 13, 2020

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HEATHER JONES

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UNCSA AT HOME

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EMCEEIN’ EYE

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May 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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MAY 13-19, 2020 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 20

10 WE DELIVER, BUT WE NEED YOU! Like many businesses in the Triad, we have lost revenue.

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MAY 13-19, 2020

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STAY HOME FOR US

Publisher CHARLES A. WOMACK III publisher@yesweekly.com

Since YES! Weekly’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have mainly focused all of our attention and efforts on telling the stories of people who had the virus (or thought they’d had it), all of the Triad small businesses that have been economically affected, as well as various Triad citizens organizing and lending their hands in the fight against COVID-19. However, we have yet to tell the stories of those working in HEALTH CARE or on the frontlines of this pandemic.

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EDITORIAL Editor KATIE MURAWSKI katie@yesweekly.com Contributors IAN MCDOWELL JOHN BATCHELOR KATEI CRANFORD MARK BURGER TERRY RADER JIM LONGWORTH

PRODUCTION Graphic Designers ALEX FARMER designer@yesweekly.com AUSTIN KINDLEY artdirector@yesweekly.com

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There’s no reason to be bored drinking your coffee at home alone when you can color along with others! Winston-Salem artist, HEATHER JONES is continuing to bring the party to you with ticketed livestream “Color & Coffee Painting Parties” she created for our present stay-athome initiative. Jones said the next party is on May 30 (sign up by May 29), with no limit to the number of participants, and to order materials ahead of time.

5 “UNCSA AT HOME” (uncsa.edu/ athome) is an on-line portal that features complete performances, videos created at home, slide-shows, and more – each one highlighting UNCSA’s five disciplines: Dance, Design & Production, Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. It’s a chance to experience the fruits and labors of this esteemed institution’s ongoing endeavors both past and present, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – and it’s completely free of charge.

6 On Feb. 23, AHMAUD, a 25-year-old black man, was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Glynn County

Georgia in broad daylight, when he was confronted by two armed white men in a pick-up truck. Moments later three shots rang out and Ahmaud lay dead.

7 This week, we’re going to have a little wine and cheese, then visit one of Greensboro’s longest running restaurant success stories. When you are cooking at home (and who isn’t these days?), you need wine pairings, and exploring unfamiliar selections would be a good way to BREAK OUT OF THE USUAL patterns and do some exploring.

8 On May 1, officials in San Diego County ordered residents to start wearing FACE COVERINGS while in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19. On May 2, an unnamed man went grocery shopping at Vons in Santee, California, where a number of shoppers took photos of the man, wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.

14 Aaron Brookshire, aka Emceein’ Eye, one half of the Winston-Salem siblingduo SPEAK N EYE, makes his solo release with Never Comply, out on May 18 from Cold Rhymes Records.

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DISTRIBUTION JANICE GANTT KYLE MUNRO CARL PEGRAM SHANE MERRIMAN JESSE GUERRA 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 2020 Womack Newspapers, Inc.

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[SPOTLIGHT]

NEW DOCUMENTARY FEATURES 2 GREENSBORO COMIC BOOK STORES

BY IAN MCDOWELL

Jermaine Exum, general manager and “Lord Retail” at Greensboro’s Acme Comics, is the first person on screen in Anthony Desiato’s feature-length documentary My Comic Shop Country. But while Exum is proud of Desiato’s film, he’s not seen it.

“Anthony worked very hard to take his labor of love from idea to a finished nationally-released feature,” Exum told YES! Weekly. “I have tremendous respect for him, but I just have this thing where I can’t watch or hear myself in things. And I know everyone has that, but I have it extra.”

Exum promised that he would watch the documentary soon, both to honor his friend’s hard and heartfelt work and “to see what everyone else has seen.”

A moving exploration of the power of comic shops to build community, My Comic Shop Country also examines their poignant and paradoxical struggle to survive even as superheroes dominate corporate media. At one point in the documentary, John Hitchcock, owner of Greensboro’s Parts Unknown: The Comic Book Store, recalls that, in the comics boom of the 1990s, there were over 12,000 comic shops in the United States.

“Now there’s, what, 3,000?”

Comic book writer and editor Mark Waid, the most prominent and acclaimed industry professional featured in the film, compares working in a comic shop to being a teacher. “You better love it, because you’re not getting rich.”

His job, explains Exum in the film, “is not simply to put Spawn back issues in the correct numerical order, but to connect people to the best stories on the shelf, to get people their very first comic book.”

At another point, Exum holds up a stack of new comics, which he calls his homework. “Every Tuesday night, I read as much as I can, so Wednesday morning, I know what I’m talking about.”

Acme’s assistant manager Austin Getzelman also stresses the importance of knowing his customers and reading the new releases. “if you don’t, you’re not going to get the same sort of feedback, you’re not going to get that level of excitement.”

“You win this battle in the comic book world, one customer at a time and one book at a time,” John Hitchcock says in the film.

The documentary is candid about problems with the way comics are sold in America. Several store owners complain about the “Pull List,” in which new issues are held for customers with subscriptions, WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

hot pour PRESENTS

[BARTENDERS OF THE WEEK | BY NATALIE GARCIA] Check out videos on our Facebook!

BARTENDER: Jenna Buskirk BAR: Bull’s Tavern many of whom never pick them up.

“That’s where the system is hideously broken, and always been hideously broken, but it just gets more and more hideously broken every year,” says Waid, who also criticizes how the survival of a book is determined by how many preorders it gets. “Comic stores live and die by what you’re going to buy, but man, the system of asking customers to pre-order stuff is absurd, it’s so antithetical to the way retail works. I don’t go into a shoe store and look at a picture of a pair of Adidas and say I want those; I’ll see you in three months.”

Despite these problems, Waid, like everyone interviewed in the documentary, clearly loves its subject matter.

Exum stressed the timeliness of Desiato’s film, released during the pandemic that shuttered comic book stores across the world as non-essential businesses.

COVID-19 even caused Diamond, the leading comics distributor, to cease its weekly shipments.

“I believe that the timing of the release of the documentary played a part in the rally around comic book stores by customers, comics fans, and comic book artists and writers. I believe that it reminded anyone who watched of the truth about comic book stores, in that they are operated by passionate people despite a system that sometimes seems to not be designed for consistent success. But that system aside, the real strength of the good local comic book store is the communities they serve.”

To anyone interested in the comic book community (and particularly to Jerome Exum, if only so that he can hear what his parents say about him in it), My Comic Shop Country can be rented or purchased on Amazon Instant Video and iTunes. !

AGE: 31 WHERE ARE YOU FROM? King, N.C. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN BARTENDING? I’ve been bartending about 10 years now—damn, that makes me feel old.

HOW DID YOU BECOME A BARTENDER? It was my watering hole after work. On a Friday night, someone called out, and the owner asked if I wanted to fill in. I absolutely loved it!

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT BARTENDING? Meeting new people! Especially when they are out of town or from different countries.

It’s a nice escape from the small town.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DRINK TO MAKE? Bloody Marys! Everyone always has a special way to make them.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DRINK TO DRINK? I really enjoy a good Old Fashion!

My favorite shot is a Baby Guinness, though.

WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND AS AN AFTER-DINNER DRINK? Tito’s and soda! It’s light and refreshing and perfect if you want to start your night off right.

WHAT’S THE CRAZIEST THINGS YOU’VE SEEN WHILE BARTENDING? Aside from the crazy bar fights and drunk girls dancing on the bar... I’ll have to say a few years ago, one night, a guy was hammered, trying to leave the bar. But he couldn’t figure out the door, so he slammed his head into it and glass shattered everywhere! His face was pretty bad, but he had no idea what had happened.

Needless to say, we sent him to the hospital, and he replaced our glass door.

WHAT’S THE BEST TIP YOU’VE EVER GOTTEN? All tips are greatly appreciated! But the biggest would probably be my first weekend right before Christmas bartending a group of men came in on a business trip to do some day-drinking.

They stayed until the end of my shift, and everything was together. So I was expecting a decent tip. When I looked at the slip, they had tipped 100% of their tab, which was $400.

I could not believe it! It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done.

MAY 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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SEE IT!

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Color & Coffee Painting Parties go online due to COVID-19

here’s no reason to be bored drinking your coffee at home alone when you can paint along with others online! Winston-Salem artist Heather Jones is continuing to bring the party to you with ticketed livestream “Color & Coffee Painting Parties.” Jones said the next party is on May 30 (sign up by May 29), with Terry Rader no limit to the number of participants, and for attendees to order their materials ahead of time.

Contributor Jones, who is “coffee-obsessed,” said she chose coffee rather than the usual wine-themed sip and paint parties because she doesn’t drink and didn’t want to gear her business around drinking alcohol.

Jones said she has been taking her in-person painting parties on the road for seven years, and that Color & Coffee Painting Parties, LLC is one of the original painting event businesses in the Triad and the first to offer traveling painting parties. When the She said the “Virtual Paintin-person events return, she ing Party Pass” fee of $20 plans to keep the monthly (regularly $30 per person) livestream parties going. would include your entire She said her party themes household, and gift certifiinclude birthdays, graduacates are available to send tions, bridal showers, baby to friends who may be out of showers, and corporate work, so they can join in from team-building events for emtheir homes. ployees or sporting teams at Heather Jones of Color & Coffee Jones said before the class either the business location participants would set up a or at a restaurant in a private Google Event account and a painting space in front of room. Jones said she especially enjoys hosting fundraistheir webcam, tablet, or smartphone, and receive an ers for churches, schools, and animal shelter pet portrait e-mailed Google link to give them private access to her parties. She said she had always loved animals and tutorial one hour before the party begins. enjoys adding surprising elements to her commissioned She said that the website offers several themes to whimsical paintings. One of her biggest pet portrait choose from, so each guest paints the same image per commissions involved a series of 12 dogs painted as halfher instructions in real-time. Guests may also participate faces by her client’s request for his pet store, Aristopets. in drawing from their imagination or by sending Jones Jones said that before social distancing went into a photo of their pet that she draws an outline drawing effect, she was a stay-at-home mom and commission beforehand (for an additional $5) for them to paint at artist counting on her painting party “gigs” to make a the party. Jones said it’s a lot of fun for her to be a part living. She said that along with taking new commissions, of someone’s special event. she had to get creative in order to continue teaching.

In her personal art, Jones said it was the thrill of her Jones said she created a Google Hangout event on life when she first learned how to color inside the lines as her website, and from there, participants can pre-select a child. Her art teacher at West Forsyth, Betti Pettinatitheir art supplies from the provided links to Michael’s Longinotti, encouraged her to try to figure out how to do stores, and they can select the 40% off coupons at things her own way. checkout, or purchase similar or out-of-stock supplies When the virus hit, Jones said she felt very uninspired. online from Walmart. She said party-attendees have She recalled how devastating it was, and she didn’t an option to buy additional supplies for future parties, know what to do. Aside from painting some family and place their order to be shipped to them, or picked up portraits and a couple of commissioned orders, taking curbside.

YES! WEEKLY

MAY 13-19, 2020

All art by Heather Jones the parties online has returned her joy of seeing others be inspired again.

“Specializing in dream-like creations, Heather’s work showcases a reality on the fringe without compromising the pulse of our humanity,” said Tommy Jones, her husband.

Looking ahead, Jones said she hopes to have a show for a new series of paintings she is thinking about doing. A few of her online pieces for sale include: “Solitude,” “The Swimmer,” “The Watcher,” and “Blowing Dandelions.”

Future plans include Jones opening a studio on their property where people can come just to paint and attend her hosted parties.

“A lot of people say these paint parties are meditating and relaxing, and while it is a fun event, you do come away relaxed,” Jones said.

“It’s not for people who know how to paint; I break it down, so it’s easy for beginners.” !

TERRY RADER is a freelance writer/editorial/content/copy, creative consultant/branding strategist, communications outreach messenger, poet and emerging singer/ songwriter.

WANNA

go?

Virtual Color and Coffee Party, May 30 at 1 p.m., sign up by May 29, ORDER SUPPLIES AHEAD, www.colorandcoffee.wixsite.com/, For more information, call (336) 354-8390

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Enjoy talent at UNCSA from the comfort of home

unique performance in a former tobacco warehouse here in Winston-Salem.

Not surprisingly, the School of Filmmaking offers a “Best-Of” showcase of short films made by students during the 2018-’19 school year. Here are the moviemakers of tomorrow making movies today – right here, in our own backyard.

See MARK BURGER’s reviews of current movies on Burgervideo.com. © 2020, Mark Burger.

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“As artists, we are never not making our art,” he continued. “Our students and faculty have been working hard from their homes throughout the country these past several weeks, and while they don’t have access to UNCSA’s top-notch facilities, they have found a way to let their talent shine in less typical locations. We also have a variety of past UNCSA performances, and we are pleased to offer samples of that to our audiences while we all stay safe at home.”

The School of Dance offers contemporary dance seniors in “Pluck Solo” videos from the Pluck Project 2020; “Dance at Home,” featuring School of Dance students performing from home; Raymonda, a video feature following UNCSA dance students as they prepared to bring a Marius Petipa work on stage for 2019’s Spring Dance; and more.

The School of Design & Production offers Storytelling Without Words, a feature-length video following students in UNCSA’s stage properties program as they painstakingly prepare custom, period-appropriate pieces for the recent UNCSA production of Spring Awakening; senior thesis projects from UNCSA’s high school Visual Arts Program; and more.

The School of Drama also offers a feature-length video, this one detailing its new emphasis on devised theater, focusing on last season’s presentation of School of Drama faculty member Mollye Maxner’s Still Life With a Rocket, providing an in-depth exploration of how the production came onto being, as students from the School of Drama collaborate to build the script and students from the School of Design & Production constructed an immersive set for a

The School of Music has launched a new YouTube channel boasting dozens of performances from years past, including faculty and student ensembles, faculty performances recorded from home, and a video highlighting the Guitar Studio in Stayin’ Alive, filmed in their homes in place of the official spring recital, which had to be canceled.

In addition to the content currently offered by “UNCSA At Home,” additional content will be added periodically.

To sum things up, “our resilient and talented Pickles are powering community despite the challenges presented by COVID-19,” Cole said. “We are pleased to give back to our audiences and community through ‘UNCSA At Home’ during this time when art is needed more than ever.”

For more information about all the goings-on at UNCSA, visit the official website: www.uncsa.edu/. !

YES!

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts has instituted a new program that allows audiences to enjoy performances and productions from the safety and comfort of their own Mark Burger home.

“UNCSA At Home” (www.uncsa.edu/ Contributor athome) is an online portal that features complete performances, videos created at home, slide-shows, and more – each one highlighting UNCSA’s five disciplines: Dance, Design & Production, Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. It’s a chance to experience the fruits and labors of this esteemed institution’s ongoing endeavors, both past and present, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – and it’s completely free of charge.

“We are thrilled to be able to give back to our community by offering ‘UNCSA At Home’ during these challenging times,” said UNCSA’s interim chancellor, Brian Cole. “As with other arts institutions across the country, we were disheartened to end our performance season early this year due to social-distancing measures aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19.”

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We hear you!

We are just as excited about the Triad’s Best Issue as you are!

But with the Coronavirus pandemic impacting us all, YES! Weekly has decided to postpone our special issue until the end of summer.

We are going to open back up the voting and give you and your business time to cast more ballots.

GOOD LUCK & WE WILL ALL GET THRU THIS BY WORKING TOGETHER.

VoTe aT TheTriadsbesT.com Call uS for all Your advErtiSing nEEdS! WWW.YESWEEklY.Com | 336-316-1231 MAY 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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If you think your pet is the CUTEST in the Triad

here’s your chance to give them Triad wide fame and notoriety they deserve by entering...

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Cutest Pet Contest Presented By

The Winner will be featured on the cover of YES! Weekly Pet Issue on June 13th and receive $100 in Gift Cards from All Pets Considered!

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HOW TO EnTER: Simply email a great photo of your pet, with his or her name, breed, age and the owner’s name, number and address to publisher@yesweekly.com. Please feel free to call 336-316-1231 for more information or if you have any questions.

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MAY 13-19, 2020

voices

Sometimes I’m ashamed to be white

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ast Thursday, my wife, Pam, and I were standing on the street in front of our house, enjoying a social distancing breath of fresh air when one of our Jim Longworth neighbors walked by us. We live in a very Longworth diverse neighborhood, and the lady at Large who walked past us happens to be black.

At that moment, she was engaged in a Bluetooth phone conversation with a friend and seemed very upset. Nevertheless, I waved, and Pam said, “hi.” Our neighbor, however, strained to acknowledge our greetings while continuing to converse on her phone.

Later, we found out why she was upset— she had just viewed the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder.

On Feb. 23, Ahmaud, a 25-year-old black man, was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Glynn County, Georgia, in broad daylight, when he was confronted by two armed white men in a pick-up truck. Moments later, three shots rang out, and Ahmaud lay dead. Hardly anyone outside of Glynn County knew about the attack because no arrests were made. But last week, a video of Ahmaud’s murder surfaced on the internet, and the national outrage began. Police then arrested 64-year-old Gregory McMichael and his 34-year-old son Travis, both white, and charged them with felony murder. The McMichaels later told police that they had been in “hot pursuit” of Ahmaud, who they believed was a burglary suspect, and that they had shot him in “self-defense.”

I’m not saying that all Southern white redneck racists are ignorant liars and cowards, but my 66- year history with them says they are. First of all, Ahmaud was not a burglar. Second, burglars don’t tend to commit a crime and then go for a leisurely jog on a Sunday afternoon. Third, if the 3 Stooges actually believed Ahmaud was a criminal, they should have just reported him to the police. And fourth, common sense tells you that it’s not “self-defense” when two armed white men murder one unarmed black man. Sometimes I’m ashamed to be white.

I was also ashamed to be White when NASCAR driver Kyle Larson used the “N-

word” last month.

Last week, when a Mecklenburg County school principal referred to black students as “colored folks,” I was ashamed to be white.

When I see cartoons still popping up on Facebook that depicts the Obamas as gorillas, I am ashamed to be white.

When African-Americans say they are afraid to wear medical masks during the pandemic for fear of being racially profiled as bank robbers, I am ashamed to be white.

When Donald Trump singles out his one African American supporter at a rally attended by a crowd comprised of 99.9% whites, by saying, “Where’s my black?” I am ashamed to be white.

And, I am ashamed to be white when right-wing conspiracy nuts say that blacks commit voter fraud by voting once, then changing their clothes in the parking lot and voting a second time in disguise.

The sad truth is that overt racist behavior has escalated over the past decade.

Ever since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, for example, there has been a rise in hate groups. There’s also been a surge in gun sales, and if this were 70 years ago, there’d be a spike in the sale of rope too.

Speaking of which, have you ever heard of one White guy lynching a Black man?

Have you ever heard of just one, hooded KKK member terrorizing a black family?

Have you ever heard of an unarmed white redneck beating up a Black man his same size? My point is that White racists are cowards who only act out their racist behavior when they’re armed and in a group.

Unfortunately, these cowards are, in some sense, an indictment of my race.

It’s no wonder, then, that my neighbor strained to greet me last week. In her heart, she knows that Pam and I are just regular folk, but it’s hard to be friendly with your white neighbor when you’ve just watched another video of another unarmed black man shot down in cold blood by another group of white racists.

In time, my black neighbors will be able to smile warmly at me again when we walk past each other. But for now, I can’t blame them for the pain and anger they must be feeling toward Southern men who happen to share my skin color. There are no words I can say to make things better. All I can say is, sometimes, I’m ashamed to be white. !

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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chow

EAT IT!

John Batchelor’s recommendations for takeout: Part VII

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BY JOHN BATCHELOR

his week, we’re going to have a little wine and cheese, then visit one of Greensboro’s longest running restaurant success stories.

When you are cooking at home (and who isn’t these days?), you need wine pairings, and exploring unfamiliar selections would be a good way to break out of the usual patterns and do some exploring. One of the best wine vendors anywhere is Zeto (zetowines.com, 335 Battleground Ave., 336-574-2850).

The shop is open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. for curbside pickup. Free delivery within Greensboro city limits is provided for case orders. (A fee is charged for delivery within Guilford County but outside the city, based on distance.) Zeto is special, because you can get things here you can’t get anywhere else.

Although the wine wall sample dispenser system (one of my favorite activities!) is temporarily suspended, two people at a time are allowed in person inside the store. Staff here can provide excellent guidance. Specialty food wares and cheeses are available in addition to wine.

Wine goes with just about any food, but cheese offers especially enticing opportunities.

Goat Lady Dairy (goatladydairy. com, 3531 Jess Hackett Rd., Climax, 336-824-2163) is “celebrating” its 25th anniversary this year. I’ve been buying their products as long as they’ve been in business. I don’t think you can get better cheeses anywhere at any price. Pickup is available at the farm, or you can order online and have selections shipped.

Check the website regarding sales at farmers markets. Deep Roots Market is also a vendor. Free shipping is provided for orders of $100 or more. Get some neighbors to join in for a big order!

Five family farms supply this artisan cheese production. My favorite is Marinated Chevre- goat cheese in olive oil with fresh herbs. Lindale is buttery in texture, a Gouda made from cows’ milk.

Providence is harder, an Italian style aged goats’ milk cheese. Smokey Mountain Round is dried and smoked over apple WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

wood. Sandy Creek is ripened goats’ milk cheese laced with ash- unique in flavor and texture.

On Thursday, May 14, at 7 p.m., the dairy is hosting an online cheese party, in partnership with Silverado Vineyards, one of California’s elite wineries. Go to the website to sign up in advance.

Liberty Oak (libertyoakrestaurant.com, 100 W. Washington St., 336-273-7057) has been open since I began writing about restaurants, although the current chef-owner was not one of the founders. The original tradition of quality food at moderate prices continues, however.

The restaurant provides pickup for both lunch (12-2 p.m.) and dinner (5-7 p.m.)

Monday-Saturday. Order online from a dropdown menu link.

Looking at small plates, I would be especially attracted to the Ravioli of Southwest chicken, black beans, cilantro and cheddar cheese; Dynamite Shrimp with Thai chili sauce; Fried Oysters with smoked corn salsa and chipotle aioli; Hardwood Smoked Salmon with capers, onions, cream cheese, and lemon-dill mayonnaise; and Crystal Coast Flatbread, hosting spinach, shrimp, and scallops.

I have long been a fan of their Burger, made with Black Angus Beef. Several other sandwiches round out the casual section of the menu.

More serious entrees include steaks, short ribs, and grilled chicken. Seafood Risotto Carbonara combines scallops, lump crabmeat, and sautéed shrimp with applewood smoked bacon. Steak Risotto joins Certified Angus Beef medallions with sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach.

For me, seafoods are the main attraction here. Blackened Salmon is topped with cherry pepper vinaigrette, served over basmati rice with applewood bacon succotash. The kitchen makes Shrimp and Grits with andouille sausage; the grits are blended with Gouda cheese. Red Snapper is pan-seared and ladled with tasso ham gravy, served over saffron rice with asparagus. Crab Cakes get a Creole remoulade sauce enhancement. I especially like the Key Lime Grilled Shrimp, with hand cut French fries, Granny Smith tart apple cole slaw, and Creole remoulade sauce.

Most entrees come with a house salad.

I probably won’t be seeing you at any of these places, unless our scheduled pickup times coincide. But please visit here and in the other local establishments I’ve been recommending in this series.

Access previous columns at issuu.com/ yesweekly. !

JOHN BATCHELOR has been writing about eating and drinking since 1981. Over a thousand of his articles have been published. He is also author of two travel/ cookbooks: Chefs of the Coast: Restaurants and Recipes from the North Carolina Coast, and Chefs of the Mountains: Restaurants and Recipes from Western North Carolina.

Contact him at john.e.batchelor@gmail.com or see his blog, johnbatchelordiningandtravel.blogspot.com.

MAY 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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[NEWS OF THE WEIRD] QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENT

On May 1, officials in San Diego County ordered residents to start wearing face coverings while in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19. On Chuck Shepherd May 2, an unnamed man went grocery shopping at Vons in Santee, California, where a number of shoppers took photos of the man, wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Staff members repeatedly asked him to remove the hood, according to a company spokeswoman, but he refused until he reached the checkout area, where a supervisor caught up to him. The man removed the hood, paid for his groceries and left. Santee Mayor John Minto told the Los Angeles Times, “Santee, its leaders and I will not tolerate such behavior.”

THE PASSING PARADE

Virginia Hamilton, 69, was charged with felonious assault in Youngstown, Ohio, on May 3 after an altercation with her live-in boyfriend. According to WKBN,

the boyfriend told police she became upset about his dirty underwear in the “laundry bucket” and grabbed a butcher knife; he tried to fight back with a pocket knife he had on hand. When officers arrived, Hamilton was on the front porch, washing blood off her hands, and the boyfriend was lying on a bed inside, covered in blood, with cuts on his arms and hands. The police report also noted that alcohol was involved. Ya think?

CREATIVE QUARANTINE

Discovery Island at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, has been closed to the public since 1999, and, of course, the park itself has been closed since mid-March because of coronavirus concerns. Once called Treasure Island, the 11-acre property sits in the park’s Bay Lake and was a pure “tropical paradise” for an unnamed interloper from Alabama, who was found camping on the island on April 30 by park security. NPR reported the 42-yearold man told Orange County Sheriff ’s deputies he was planning to stay about a week and was unaware he was doing anything wrong, despite numerous “no trespassing” signs and calls from authorities over loudspeakers. Nevertheless, he

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MAY 13-19, 2020

was charged with trespassing and was banned from all Disney properties.

FLORIDA

Two landscapers were charged with DUIs for driving the same vehicle at the same time in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, after police pulled over an SUV that had been reported to be driving recklessly on April 15. According to police reports, the officers spotted Alfredo Lopez Chaj, 24, behind the wheel, but by the time an officer approached the car, Chaj was standing outside it, and Martin Lopez Chaj, 20, was in the driver’s seat.

The younger man, apparently a brother, had slid over from the passenger seat, put the car in gear and tried to escape, but the officer pulled him out of the car, The Palm Beach Post reported. Both men, police noted, smelled of alcohol, and both had wet their pants; neither had a valid driver’s license.

PRECOCIOUS

A Utah Highway Patrol officer pulled over a car in Weber County on May 4 for “what he thought was an impaired driver,” the highway patrol said on Twitter, but instead he was shocked to find a 5-year-old in the driver’s seat.

The boy told the trooper he took off in his parents’ car after arguing with his mother because she wouldn’t buy him a Lamborghini, according to United Press International. He planned to drive to California to get one for himself, but alas, “he only had $3 his wallet,” the highway patrol noted.

WAIT, WHAT?

— Katrina Morgan, 50, called 911 on May 2 in Port Clinton, Ohio, asking for the fire department because, “I need somebody to come put it out with their hose,” according to police reports. “It” was her crotch, she told the dispatcher, and it was on fire. The News Herald reported that police responding to her call arrested Morgan for making false reports and disrupting public services, and found empty bottles of alcohol in the house.

Other people at the home admitted they’d been drinking but said they didn’t see her using the telephone.

— An advertisement for a deodorant that aired during “Britain’s Got Talent” on May 2 caused a backlash among viewers who were shocked to see the ad conclude with a squirrel “getting it on” with a can of the deodorant, as one angry viewer put it. “We are watching this as a family,” wrote one complainant, according to The Independent, while others noted the ad celebrating Lynx Africa’s 25th an-

niversary was “inappropriately scheduled” and “unsuitable for children.” The Advertising Standards Authority received 155 complaints about the ad, but said, “No decision has been made on whether there are grounds for an investigation.”

STORYTIME

Nursery school teacher Eloise Roberts, 32, has been making videos for her students during the coronavirus lockdown, and recently decided to take advantage of a lovely spring day to record a story about unicorns at the horse riding school in Moreton, Merseyside, England, where she lives. What she didn’t expect was the springtime friskiness of the horses in the background. “I could hear that the horses were up to something behind me,” Roberts told the Daily Mail, so she turned around to discover the more compelling story happening behind her, and quickly moved to another field.

BRIGHT IDEA

Officials in Lund, Sweden, were concerned about people spreading coronavirus in the town’s central park as they gathered for Walpurgis Night on April 30, a traditional celebration welcoming longer, warmer days that includes picnics and bonfires. So to discourage revelers, the town spread chicken manure all over the park. “This is a park where usually 30,000 people gather, but with COVID-19, this is now unthinkable,” Mayor Philip Sandberg told Reuters. “We don’t want Lund to become an epicenter for the spread of the disease. Even a small number of people still going to the park can become a big risk.”

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS

Before Quintin Henderson, 28, was released from Illinois’ Cook County Jail on May 2, he made a deal with fellow inmate Jahquez Scott, 21. The Chicago SunTimes reported that Scott promised Henderson $1,000 for letting Scott assume his identity, according to jail authorities, and when Henderson’s name was called, Scott stepped up, face mask in place, signed a few papers and walked away. It was when Henderson approached staff members a little while later and said he’d fallen asleep that officers realized there’d been a switch. Henderson, who was supposed to be released, is now being held on charges of aiding and abetting the escape of a felon, and Scott is still on the run. !

© 2020 Chuck Shepherd. Universal Press Syndicate.

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

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Stay home for us: Triad health care workers speak out about COVID-19

“

It was a bona fide nightmare,” said Alan Grizzard, a registered nurse based in WinstonSalem, when asked to describe his time working in New Katie Murawski York City amid its COVID-19 peak.

Grizzard spoke Editor with YES! Weekly by phone on April 30, just about two weeks after he worked at the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States.

Grizzard said he has been working as an RN for 11 years, and before that, he worked as a paramedic for 10 years.

Grizzard is presently working at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and going to school full time to become a nurse practitioner.

Grizzard is obviously no stranger to the unpredictable nature of the health care field, but even he wasn’t fully prepared for what he witnessed while working in New York City.

“It was a very, very life-changing experience,” he said. “In the first 14 days or so while I was there, we had a 60-bed ER, and we had 150 patients in there at one time, 90% of them have COVID. It was hectic; the hospital system up there was on the brink of collapse—a lot of death and despair. Toward the end of my deployment, there was a lot of rejoicing and positives that happened as well.”

Grizzard was working through an agency that does disaster and relief staffing through FEMA, which was deployed to New York City to help the Big Apple’s overwhelmed health care workers.

“When I am on call to help, I help,” he said. “It is just what I do.”

He flew out on March 27, and he came home on April 18— a total of 23 days, where 21 of which, he worked up to 15-16 hours a day at Jacobi Medical Center, located in the Bronx.

“I was on the bus in the morning at 5:40 a.m. heading to the hospital, and at 6:30 a.m. or so, I am at the hospital until 8 p.m.,” he said. “On a good day, we would finish between 7:30 or 8 p.m. and back to the hotel at 8:30 p.m. to clean up, eat, and hit the sack. Then, get up the next morning and do it all over again.”

“Oh my gosh, yes,” said Grizzard when YES! WEEKLY

MAY 13-19, 2020

asked if he had witnessed any deaths first-hand.

He estimates that he witnessed at least 100 deaths on his shift alone.

“The least we had on any one day was two, and the most we had in one day was nine,” he said of the daily COVID-19 death count. “It was usually between four or six deaths a day, on my shift.”

Witnessing that many deaths in less than a month could really take a toll on someone’s mental health, and Grizzard admitted it was challenging. Grizzard said that mental health resources were readily available to him and he had utilized those resources every day he was there.

“It hasn’t affected me negatively, mentally, per se, but it has caused me to re-evaluate certain points in my life,” he said. “It has caused me to reposition myself on a lot of my viewpoints on certain subjects. I had a heavy heart most of the time I was there.”

There is not really any specific protocol for treating COVID-19, Grizzard explained, only guidelines. Grizzard said the pandemic is uncharted waters for everyone right now, and even though he thrives in an unpredictable, semi-controlled work environment, the unpredictability of the virus was very frustrating for him.

“I was in New York after 9/11 for a few days as a paramedic, providing relief,” he explained. “9/11 was a single incident, and we had an estimate on the number of casualties that were in the Twin Towers, for example. We had an estimated number of missing people, and an influx of patients to expect based on how fast rescue operations could execute search and rescue incidents. So, there was some preparation that had already been done. COVID is on the other side of the spectrum; there is no way to predict accurately how many patients are going to come through that ER in one day. There is no way to predict the severity of the patients that EMS is going to pick up and bring in.”

“How do you apologize to somebody?

You have the knowledge base and skill sets as a nurse or a doctor, but you can’t help them because we don’t know how to help,” he added. “How do you apologize to somebody like that?”

Grizzard explained some of the differences he noticed between working at the hospital in New York versus working at a hospital in North Carolina.

“The differences are profound because of the population density in New York,” he remarked. “What we do not have here is

Health Workers Defend N.C. counterprotesting on April 28 in Raleigh. Nurse Practitioner and Kernersville resident Amber Brown can be seen at the center public hospitals, and the hospital system in New York is run by the governmentoperated New York Hospitals and Health system, which is the public health system.

Because the hospitals are public, city-run hospitals, it is taxpayer based mostly, so the resources aren’t as plentiful. The level of resources are not up to the standard that we operate here. For example, the electronic medical records system, EPIC, is bare bones up there because they don’t have the money to afford a customdesigned, high-end medical record system like the EPIC system we have here. Just the typical, general resources were not up to the standard that we are used to here.

PPE was not an issue; there was plenty of PPE up there.”

Speaking of PPE, Grizzard noted that his uniform during his deployment consisted of three layers: a base layer (scrubs or street clothes), disposable scrubs, isolation gown (which is changed between every patient as to not crosscontaminate), protective eyewear, some type of mask (respiratory gas mask, a sealed helmet, an N95 protective mask), head covering, boot covers and of course, gloves.

“There were about three layers of protective equipment,” he said. “It is a lot of supplies and can be physically burdening on any health system when you have a pandemic, and when it is an infectious, communicable disease. You have to isolate as best as you can within reason.”

Grizzard said what kept him going during this time was the love and support from his wife and kids back in WinstonSalem.

“We would FaceTime every day, rallying each other,” he said. “We were very careful when I came home— I had been

CDC cleared, I had my negative swabs and quarantined when I got home. I did what I was supposed to do and followed every guideline. Low and behold, I have been healthy, same with the kiddos. For the first week I was home, even though we were in the same house together, I had no contact with the kids, and they understood and were real troopers about it. We got through it together.”

When asked if he would do it all over again, and go back to New York City to help, Grizzard answered, “in a heartbeat.”

“I was supposed to go back this weekend [May 2], but they started putting redeployment on hold, which is great for New York because things were starting to improve to the point where they had enough staff. But it is starting to look like I may have an opportunity to go back again because there have been a lot of staff that have been there since March,” he explained. “I didn’t really get the closure I wanted, but also, it is not over up there, and I feel like I need to be up there helping because it is still overburdening the system.”

Grizzard describes himself as a political moderate, and he said he could see and understand the points of view of those who want to reopen the state’s economy as soon as possible, as well as those being more cautious and following the governor’s orders for a gradual reopening.

“I think the whole point right now is that we have not flattened the curve, as they say,” Grizzard said over the phone on April 30. “Our numbers are still rising.

And we have to look at percentages; we can’t just look at the new number of cases that we have or the number of deaths we have now or had because there is enough foreshadowing to say that unfortunately,

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PHOTOS BY JADE WILSON

View from behind the Health Workers Defend N.C. group onlooking the ReOpen N.C. protesters people are going to still pass away from this. You have to look at percentages, and what is still alarming right now, is so many people got swabbed in the last week, but the percentages of positives results from those swabs are alarmingly high, so we still have a large percentage of folks potentially exposed that are testing positive, so we are not ready to safely reopen yet.”

Grizzard said that the state needs to be systematic about reopening, and that restaurants, or places where human contact is more likely, are the last places that need to reopen. YES! Weekly asked Grizzard what he thought about the ReOpen N.C. protests.

“I wasn’t there; I just saw some news coverage and some articles about it,” he said. “But I understand that the primary organizing group, from what I have seen, wasn’t very civil about it, and caused some trouble. The anti-protesters, to my understanding, were really still and quiet and not provoking or inciting anything, and then the instigating side sort of decided to be provocative. That is what I have seen and heard, and that is not the right way to do it. If you are going to act like that, nobody is going to want to go out of their way to accommodate your opinions and how you present your views.

No one is going to want to deal with you if you go out acting stupid.”

Grizzard said he believes that there is no “right or wrong decision,” with handling COVID-19, but rather that the most appropriate decision should be made “that is going to minimize the damage and maximize the benefits to get back to our normal lives.”

“You don’t have to agree or disagree; it is about understanding and compromise,” WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

he said. “Agreeing or disagreeing is going to make this go away. You can out in front of the capitol building in Raleigh and act as stupid all you want; it is not going to do anything except cost yourself grief and make the news.”

Grizzard applauded New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his leadership during this crisis.

“This man needs to run for president because he understands both sides of the story, but he also understands what is necessary to systematically start the recovery process for the economy,” he said.

“I think that New York may be the greatest city in America. When there is a need, New Yorkers come together. The support and stanchion up there are just unbelievable— just how the whole city came together to fight this thing, regardless of what your viewpoint is. The country needs to be like that. North Carolina needs to be like that. Winston-Salem needs to follow suit because at the end of the day, COVID is here, and unless we stand up and take the aggression toward it, it is going to be the aggressor, and we are going to continue to be reactive instead of proactive.

Reaction is not going to eradicate this pandemic. We all have to stand up and support one another, as Americans, as humans. Otherwise, the political division is going to continue to allow this pandemic to prevail and take more victims than it has to.”

Grizzard said the most important thing to do right now is to be patient, reach out for resources, help each other, be there for each other, and “go get it and growl.”

“I think the biggest lesson is, nothing is up to us, ever,” he said. “We are all in the same battle; we do the best we can with what we have to work with. But we can’t

take anything in life for granted because nothing is promised and there are no guarantees. And at the end of the day, we all just need to come together and get through this, politics aside. Right now, this country is more divided than it has ever been in my lifetime, I know that. The COVID pandemic isn’t helping.”

Amber Brown is a nurse practitioner living in Kernersville, who graduated from Duke in May 2019. She worked as an NP for Wake Forest Baptist Hospital from September 2019 to March 2020.

“I am not currently working as an NP, because I had a scholarship that included a stipend through the Department of Health and Human Services—it is called the Nurse Corps Scholarship, and you have to repay it through service,” she explained in a phone interview on April 29. “Each year, facilities get recertified to count as a high-need area, and Baptist, where I was working, no longer qualified.”

She gave her notice at Baptist, “and then the world fell apart.” Brown said even though she is still employed by Wake Forest Baptist Health as a PRN or as-needed floor nurse—she isn’t working, “because there aren’t shifts to pick up.”

“Which is great because it means our efforts to flatten the curve are working—except the fact that I am not working,” she said with a chuckle. “I feel the same pinch that everyone else does; I just kind of see the greater good in feeling that pinch.”

Brown is one of the faces of Health Workers Defend N.C., the group that according to a press release, “ includes nurses, medical students, physician assistants, pharmacists, a therapeutic triage specialist, and a nutrition specialist,” who traveled to counterprotest from Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, Greensboro and

Asheboro. The press release states that Health Workers Defend N.C. organized after the April 21 ReOpen N.C. protest “to show the harm of not ‘sticking to the plan’ of social distancing and to call for continued support for stay-at-home measures until the danger has passed.”

“I am a real nurse, I work in oncology and have for eight years,” she said. “Those patients are the reason I go out. The immunocompromised, the ones at-risk that the other side thinks can be sacrificed; those are the people I got out to stand for because they can’t take the risk.”

Brown explained that her choice to go to Raleigh and counterprotest was due to all the media coverage she saw of the ReOpen N.C. protesters.

Brown wanted to show that there are others who oppose reopening too soon, but can’t be present because “they either are too immunocompromised or it would be unsafe for them to come out and counterprotest. Or they are just following the [Executive] Order.”

On April 28, Brown said that there were about 300 ReOpen N.C. protesters present, and about 11 health care workers present in counterprotest.

“We don’t want to get to 300,” she explained. “There is no way to safely social distance and do what you are supposed to do.”

Even though Health Workers Defend N.C. were outnumbered by ReOpen N.C. protesters, Brown called them “not an adequate representation of our citizens.”

She said on April 21, she went to counterprotest alone. While she was making her way through the jeering crowd, she saw Carrie Shropshire, a medical student from Campbell, who pulled her into the group of other health care demonstrators, MAY 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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PHOTOS BY JADE WILSON

ReOpen N.C. protester stands in front of counterprotesters with a sign that reads: “‘Stay Home’ Orders Come From Nazi Sympathizers” which is how she got involved with Health Workers Defend N.C. “I was just so glad to see someone else,” Brown said. “It is important to know that we are health care workers defending North Carolina.”

Brown explained that while at the protest, she, along with the other health care professionals, stood quietly, six feet apart wearing masks, scrubs and did not engage with the rowdy protesters yelling at them.

“It was conflicting, and it was something I went back and forth about,” she said on her decision to travel to Raleigh and counterprotest. “At the same time, it is important enough to me and important enough to my patients because [ReOpen N.C.] was getting so much press.

How many days leading up to it did we see coverage on them? Especially from the botched rally, where they got shut down and were told they had to socially distance. I saw something about them every day, but there was nothing about the stay-at-home side of it—because they were staying at home. So, I think it is important to let people know that there are people who oppose it, because there are people who are complying and doing what they are supposed to do, and they weren’t getting the coverage the ReOpen N.C. people were getting.”

After seeing nurses from other states taking to the street in protest as well, Brown said that it was something that she could do. She had the backbone, she had the thick skin, and she had nothing but time to stand up for her patients.

“There is a lot of information and misinformation out there,” Brown said. “I think we all need to read with a critical eye and question. Something that you are always YES! WEEKLY

MAY 13-19, 2020

taught when looking at the value of a research paper, something you want to know, ‘is there any bias in this paper?’ ‘Is there any reason someone is saying this?’

‘Is this a drug study by the company that made the drug?’ Or, ‘is this independent research?’

“When going over all of this information that we are getting from COVID, you are not going to find much good data that it is caused by 5G—which was on one of the signs I saw yesterday,” she continued.

“You are not going to find good data that [COVID-19] is fake. You are not going to find good data that it is manufactured.

You are not going to find good data that we are erroneously inflating [cases, deaths]. Or that nurses are filling out death certificates to say COVID, because number one, we don’t fill out death certificates. Just throwing that out there.”

She said people need to look at things more critically instead of blindly believing everything they hear or see on social media and other misleading outlets.

“Why is say, FOX News, wanting to open up and telling us the virus isn’t real? Or why is someone touting a certain drug that they may or may not have purchased stock in the company that makes it, and now they want us all to buy it?”

“I know people who have died, who have had it—I know nurses who have contracted it from their patients,” she said.

“These are not people in other states.

These are people here in North Carolina.

People are dying, and it is not just the elderly, and it is not just the immunocompromised—they are at higher risk, but children also get COVID. Children also get intubated. And to see the people out there with their kids, without masks on, baffles me as a parent because I wouldn’t

willingly put my child at risk for anything.

I buckle them in a seatbelt or car seat because I know there is a risk for an accident.

I know there is a risk of infection—my kids are driving me nuts, but I am not going to take them [out and expose them].”

The first time Brown went to Raleigh to counterprotest, she said she was heckled, but not because of her reason for being there. Brown said she was heckled for her appearance, and more specifically, because of her weight.

“They told me that obesity and people like me were a bigger strain on the health care system, which I don’t disagree with,” she said. “Obesity is a strain on the health care system. But what they don’t understand is that not every obese person shows up in the same week, and that is the difference. When there is an outbreak, when there is a pandemic, everybody shows up at once.”

This, she said, is what overwhelms the health care system.

“The personal attacks on me started because I was not responding; I was not giving them what they wanted. They wanted me to fight back and argue with their fallacies, and I am not going to argue with fallacies. So, they started attacking me personally. And I think it says a lot about a person if that is where they go.

They knew nothing about me, and they couldn’t attack my intelligence...they saw an obese person, and that is where they went. And it never was a man. All of the articles showed pictures of me with a guy, but it was a woman that attacked me for my weight.”

Brown said she was not only bodyshamed and harassed for her weight; she was actually followed by one of the protesters while leaving the demonstration.

“While I was there, the first time, they surrounded me, and people had followed me back to my car,” she said. “At one point, there was a car following me.

Then, I started taking weird turns through neighborhoods, but the car was still there.”

Brown said after the protesters accused her of being a fake nurse, she decided to go on the record and share her story with the media. But after her name made it in print, she said the protesters started coming for her and her family online.

“Then, they found my Facebook,” she continued “Then, they found my mom, and then, they started calling my dad’s business.”

However, most disturbing to Brown were the things she overheard from the protesters, including someone threatening to use their gun instead of getting inoculated.

“That is what they told us, that was the only shot they were going to take, was

with their guns,” she said. “And that they were going to eat health care workers when they run out of food from not having jobs.”

“One thing I heard last week was that everyone has to die of something,” she continued. “And yes, everyone does have to die from something. But nobody should die from something preventable. ‘The old people are going to die anyway’ was another thing I heard. Yes, old people are going to die anyway, but I am not sacrificing them.”

Brown said she also overheard protesters’ conspiracy theories about health care workers and hospitals getting rich off of COVID-19. Brown told YES! Weekly, from what she has seen being in this field, people who go into health care just for the money end up not lasting long.

“It is not easy, and I think that is something that is hitting nurses and health care workers [now], especially if their specialty is in something that doesn’t deal with death,” she said. “We don’t like losing our patients, we don’t like seeing them sick, we don’t like seeing them die, and we don’t like seeing them die from something preventable. It is hard to go out there and stand and listen to them.

But it is so much harder to hold someone’s hand while they die.”

Brown said even though that death is indeed inevitable, she doesn’t believe in wishing it upon anyone, especially right now, during a deadly pandemic that has already claimed 577 North Carolinian lives, as of May 12. Also, because of hospital restrictions, where families can’t visit their loved ones, even those at the end of their life.

“Another argument I heard was ‘Oh, well they are going to be able to say their goodbyes from an iPad,’” Brown said. “Is that how you want to say goodbye to your mother? From an iPad? No, you want to surround her with love.”

Brown said she began to notice the demographics of the crowd after attending two protests. She said that she saw a wide range of ages present “from strollers to walkers, but mostly middle-aged,” that were predominately white, with a balanced mix of men and women. (The women, she noted, were being equally aggressive as the men.)

“This past time, probably just because they were so out there, I saw a lot of hairdressers,” she recalled. “They were wearing pool noodle scissors—they made scissors out of pool noodles and aluminum foil. Then there were guys wearing wigs, I guess, signifying that they needed a haircut? There were people in costumes.

The guy that offered to get arrested was wearing a Viking helmet.”

Brown said that this same person was

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also wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag as a cape. After ignoring capitol police orders for the protesters to stay separated from the counterprotesters, Brown said the man yelled, “I want to be arrested so I can be rich and famous!”

Brown said in a phone interview on April 29 that because North Carolina had taken protective measures early on, the state has been flattening the curve. But, she said, if the state reopens too soon, it will cause a surge in cases and, thus, overwhelm the health care system.

“As far as following science and data, and the fact that there are a plan and stages of reopening, I do agree with that,” Brown said of North Carolina’s leadership under Gov. Roy Cooper in a phone interview on April 29. “I do think he is looking at cases, test availability, and percentage of the population getting tested and resources for health care workers, so I am supportive of his plan.”

However, Brown said she isn’t supportive of the federal government’s response to the virus. Brown recalled that on Jan. 20, her brother texted her while traveling in Asia to asked her if COVID-19 was something he should worry about. Like most people in the United States during this time, including the country’s own Commander-in-Chief, Brown thought that it was just an overreaction to the flu. In February, after researching it a bit more, she said the data started to concern her.

“In the beginning, I understood ‘it’s just the flu,’ but once we started getting more data that said it wasn’t just the flu, their stance didn’t change,” she said of the federal government’s response to COVID-19. “Do I think it would have made a difference in the economy? No, but people would have had more time to prepare.”

Brown thinks the best course of action to keep North Carolina from dire straits now is to “stick with the plan.”

“That is the problem with this; it is working, so we look like we are excessive,” she said. “But it is working, and we need to continue doing what we need to do.”

In a text message on May 11, Brown wrote that she believes the state entering Phase I of reopening is premature.

“Gov. Cooper clearly outlined the requirements for reopening and we haven’t met a single one,” she wrote. “I am very concerned for what’s going to happen to the health care system in a few weeks.”

Brown wrote that she wouldn’t be returning to counterprotest on May 12 because, “Our message has been heard, it has nothing to do with entering Phase I.” “Just because we’re in Phase I doesn’t mean that they have to go out,” she said when asked what advice she has for YES! Weekly readers. “They can still shelter-inplace. They can still protect themselves WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

and their families. If they must go out, wear masks. Don’t wear gloves— they give a false sense of security and people cross-contaminate. Frequent hand washing is much more effective. They should also contact their state representatives, make their concerns known. Contact Gov. Cooper as well. We are the majority, but no one sees that on the news because they are all doing what they are supposed to do: stay at home.”

Luis Cruz is from Greensboro but works in Raleigh as a medical lab technician working directly with hospitals. He has been a lab tech for two and a half years, and he is in charge of identifying different pathogens that are “making people ill as well as testing different drugs on those pathogens in order to determine the concentrations of which would work better.”

Cruz said that he has been handling a lot of COVID-19 tests. Cruz said he also attended the protests in Raleigh with the group, Health Workers Defend N.C. As a health care worker, Cruz said he feels a personal responsibility to make his voice heard.

“I think we have a responsibility, seeing first-hand what is going on,” Cruz said in a phone interview on May 7. “A lot of people are calling it a hoax and not believing in it at all, and other people are not taking it seriously. That is clearly seen by the actions of the ReOpen protesters, who are risking everyone. Everyone else in the community has a responsibility to be there to counter that rhetoric, not really for them but for the people at home watching and paying attention. For the people who are confused— who don’t really understand the situation either, that could listen to the protesters’ arguments and go with that narrative, which could put even more people at risk. This needs to be the effort of the entire community.”

Cruz said he is counterprotesting ReOpen N.C. to put pressure on North Carolina leadership to not rush into reopening until there are appropriate measures that keep everyone safe.

“I am very concerned,” he said. “I get that the numbers aren’t as high in North Carolina yet, but part of that is due to us shutting down, and people do not see that. I am afraid of what could happen if we don’t open responsibly, which I don’t think we are even ready to open right now.”

Cruz said he was also heckled and yelled at for showing up to the protests, but he said he could see through their rage and outbursts.

“You can tell they are not really united, and in a sense, they are desperate,” he said. “They are mad, but they aren’t entirely sure what they are angry about.”

“There were a lot of conspiracy theories

ReOpen N.C. protester wearing a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag as a cape while holding a helmet, and facing the Health Workers Defend N.C. counterprotesters during that yelling, and they did not match one another,” Cruz continued. “I don’t think they really understand what is going on themselves. It is really out of fear that they are acting this way.”

Cruz said he doesn’t believe it was the right move to start the reopening process last Friday.

“We already think that opening now based on the governor’s orders is bad enough already,” he admitted. “I don’t think we are at where we need to be to reopen— the testing isn’t being provided for the community, but on top of that, there are some lawmakers that are introducing a bill to bypass all of those orders.”

Cruz is referring to S.B. 712, which according to www.ncleg.gov, was filed on May 5 and passed its first reading on May 7. This bill’s primary sponsors are Sen. Warren Daniel (R-46), Sen. Vickie Sawyer (R-34), and Sen. Carl Ford (R-33). There are over 20 state senators co-sponsoring this bill, all Republicans, including Davidson and Montgomery Counties’ state representative Sen. Eddie Gallimore (R-29), Guilford and Alamance Counties’ state representative Sen. Rick Gunn (R-24), Forsyth and Davie Counties’ state representative Sen. Joyce Krawiec (R-31), as well as Guilford and Randolph Counties’ state representative, and the Senate majority whip Sen. Jerry Tillman (R-26).

According to the University of North Carolina School of Government, this bill “establishes criminal immunity for any violation of the following five executive orders, issued between March 17, 2020, and April 23, 2020...Additionally, it establishes criminal immunity for any violation of any executive order issued after April 23, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 emergency pursuant to specified statu-

tory authority regarding the state of emergencies.”

It also caps the penalty few for subsequent violations, and bars disciplinary action by occupational licensing boards against anyone who does not follow Gov. Cooper’s executive orders.

“This is pretty much giving [the ReOpen protesters] what they want, and that is very dangerous, and the consequences will be terrible,” Cruz said. “They are getting behind these protesters, and that speaks volumes of what leadership is doing. There needs to be more aid provided to the community—also for the communities that are excluded [from CARES] who also pay taxes as well and contribute to not only North Carolina, but the entire United States of America. Yet, they are not marching or protesting for business to open.”

Cruz believes that North Carolina’s leadership should do what is best for the whole state, not just for North Carolina business owners.

“I really think that leadership should think of human lives before businesses,” Cruz said. “We understand that the business owners are hurting, but human life does not have a price. And there are more people that will suffer from this than business owners. And their suffering is not necessarily going to kill them, it might financially hurt them, and that is terrible, it is a terrible thing. But you cannot get life back.” !

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.

MAY 13-19, 2020 YES! WEEKLY

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HEAR IT!

tunes

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Putting out in a pandemic: ‘Never Comply’ with Emceein’ Eye

A

aron Brookshire, aka Emceein’ Eye, one half of the Winston-Salem sibling-duo Speak N Eye, makes his solo release with Never Comply, out on May Katei Cranford 18 from Cold Rhymes Records.

On Brookshire’s Contributor official studio debut, the once tag-along little brother charges into his own—in true Aries fashion, matching his horoscope and notions reinforced by the leather-bound ram which wraps the cover. It’s taken from his mom’s 1974 highschool yearbook (the same he and his brother attended,) the record release itself falls on her birthday.

“The label told me the release-date they planned, and I was like ‘oh snap that’s serendipitous,’” Brookshire said.

“Happy 61st, mom, you’re the strongest person I know!”

A fateful coincidence, as Brookshire holds family—and friends—in high regard, bestowing gratitude to loved-ones and mentors who helped ”turn visions into tangible realities” for the album. ”Grab onto something tight, cause the crew is bringing the pain,” he said about those involved in Use A Mic, the first single, which knocks for a place at the table.

“Gotta fight for your right / They take the cake, we make off with the crumbs,” Brookshire spits, with PT Burnem, ialive, YES! WEEKLY

MAY 13-19, 2020

and co-producer Height Keech (founder of Cold Rhymes Records,) in his corner on the track.

Twinn Zues makes an appearance on the record engineered by Grant Livesay.

Producer credits are split amongst Keech and Ohio beat-artist Brett Fullerton, with a track from Baltimore’s DJ I’ll Tell You What (AKA “OCDJ,” Dan Gaeta, of the Wham City collective).

“He glued it all together,” Brookshire said about Keech, the Baltimore artist of whom he’s been a fan since highschool house-party days in early 2000s Greenville—and whose penchant for “digging deep into the garage rock loops” rings through the album.

The product: Never Comply, is an ode to oneself. A hip hop record at home on a shelf between Bob Seger and WAR, resonating personal notes drizzled with party tunes, hype-songs, and “Dinnerludes” that culminate an ultimately person story—clearing airs of past demons and dirty laundry.

“You gotta keep it vulnerable and somewhat relatable, ” Brookshire said of injecting so much of himself into a record, “you can’t be scared to air it out.” Lifting the veil on weight he’s carried has helped him breathe easier, but Never Comply isn’t all heavy. ”We’re coming at you with lots of just straight jams and songs about doing the dang thing,” he noted.

Tracks like “Black Mop Water” and “Work Ain’t Done” ring as anthems for folks grinding through restaurant life while making art. “For those living a double-life, Clark Kent style, spending

Top left, performing at Grievous Gallery in Salisbury

by Michelle Hughs.

Above, Still The Days at Gibbs

by Darkroomdavis. their days and nights tearing it up in the kitchen,” Brookshire said, holding the restaurant-industry close to the vest.

“There’s so much to talk about in that area,” he added of the ways the pandemic has shaken the industry. “Good and bad.

But most of all, it’s exposed just how many people live day-to-day on a tipbased income.”

Exposing inequities continue on tracks like “Make It Stop,” inspired by the border camps, but broadly applicable, “it’s a morality check for anyone who thinks there’s not unspeakable evil going down,” Brookshire noted.

Getting reflective, “Broken Glass” seeks togetherness in the face of drunken self-destruction, the hook being a flip of the Melle Mel line from “the Message” by Grandmaster Flash. For Brookshire, the song is his way of saying “you’re not alone, we’ve all spun way out of control.”

A welcomed message in times of pandemic—a time which Brookshire described putting out a record using unabashed matter-of-fact style: “it stinks!”

In the works since 2018, Never Comply, was slated for a spring 2020 release, entering the final mastering process right as covid-19 became serious in America.

The idea of postponing came and went.

“It just felt right to stick to schedule,” Brookshire explained, he balanced bummers of losing hand-to-hand networking against upticks in digital sales—before settling on excitement at “seeing so many artists doing livestreams and finding ways to bring their music to people.”

He hopes to bridge that digital divide

by creating special content exclusive to Cold Rhymes subscribers, which grants catalogue-access and early releases for $4 a month.

“I’d rather be in the moment, delivering the rhyme goods and commanding people to boogie,” Brookshire admitted of his love for performing. He’s hoping for a proper album release party in the future, along with rescheduling the Fifth Annual “Winston-Salem Rap Round Robin,” originally planned for April 11.

“Whether it’s been a keg party in an underground art gallery, live skate session, or outdoors BBQ, we always try to bring something exciting and unique,” Brookshire said of the event, tentatively rescheduled for July. “We have something epic up our sleeves for this redo, ‘’ he added, “this year will not be an exception to that Winston Freak ethic.“ “We’re gonna bring the noise,” Brookshire insisted, ”somehow, life will find a way.” For now, he’s bringing Never Comply, out May 18th via Cold Rhymes Records. !

KATEI CRANFORD is a Triad music nerd who hosts the Tuesday Tour Report, a radio show on hiatus due to covid-19.

WANNA

listen?

Pre-order the digital album at www.speakneye. bandcamp.com/album/never-comply

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last call

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

CLONE SHARK

I’m a gay man. I was in a relationship with my ex for about three years.

We’re on good terms and hang out as friends. He recently started dating a guy who looks like my Amy Alkon long-lost twin (except he’s got about Advice 40 pounds on me).

Our mutual friends Goddess find this creepy and weird, and I have to say, I do, too. —Disturbed When two people break up, there’s often the inevitable, “It’s not you...” but you don’t expect, “It’s not you; it’s you... with more of a thing for beer, fried foods, and cake.”

This sort of thing can seem seriously creepy, until you drop in on a behavioral genetics researcher like Nancy Segal.

Research by Segal and others on identical twins separated at birth (sometimes by a hospital mix-up) and raised apart suggests that many of our behaviors and preferences are genetically driven. For example, Segal told me “most behaviors have a 50% genetic effect.” There’s an interplay between genes and environment that can shake things up a bit, but if Mommy likes hot food and dark-haired men, there’s a good chance her daughter (who shares approximately 50% of her DNA) will also be thumbs up for Sergio and Sriracha.

The power of genes in driving behavior and preferences is reflected in Oskar and Jack, separated-at-birth identical twins Segal studied. When they met as adults, they discovered they both wrapped tape around pens and pencils to get a better grip, read books from back to front, and flushed toilets before using them as well as afterward. Sure, these could be wild coincidences, but they’re most likely expressions of personality traits, which are substantially driven by genetics. For example, Segal explains in “Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins” that “both Jack and Oskar were sensitive to germs,” so their shared “penchant” for the double flush “is understandable.”

We might not see situations like yours often simply because there’s a gap between the features and traits we’re most attracted to and those available to us in people around us. Accordingly, it is possible that neither you nor the new guy entirely reflects your ex’s mate preferences, but your ex missed you and came as close as he could to replacing you when choosing his next boyfriend.

Apparently, he picked him up not at the bar but at Costco, where the products we know and love come in more generous packages: “Dumpster-sized,” “Grand Canyon-sized,” and “black hole-sized extra value pack.”

GLOOM WITH A VIEW

I’m a 30-year-old woman in a new relationship with a really great guy. I haven’t been very lucky in romance, and in the past, every time I met someone I really liked, I ended up getting the rug pulled

answers [CROSSWORD] crossword on page 9

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[WEEKLY SUDOKU] sudoku on page 9

out from under me and getting dumped when I thought things were going great.

This has left me with some raging insecurities. How can I calm down so I won’t get so freaked out that I sabotage the relationship? —Panicky It’s good to let your partner know you don’t take him for granted, though ideally not by waking up every morning all excited he’s (still) there: “Wow, can’t believe you didn’t sneak out, fake your death, and move to Belize!”

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said something along the lines of, “It is not events that disturb us but the views we take of them.” In other words, it is not what happens to us that makes us feel bad but our interpretation of it. Chances are your interpretation is that it would be HORRIBLE if you were to get dumped again. Psychologist Albert Ellis calls this “catastrophizing”: engaging in irrational, overblown, drama llama thinking that only serves to make us more miserable.

Rational thought, however, is the faceslap out of hysteria that we used to see in old movies. An example of the rational approach: There are “HORRIBLE” things

in the world, like being eaten alive by a family of bears. But let’s be honest: Being dumped is merely a miserable experience you’d prefer to avoid. You will survive.

Research by psychologist Lauren C. Howe suggests a person’s interpretation of their breakup is key to their ability to recover from it. She finds that people who cast their breakup as a learning experience, viewing it as an opportunity for personal growth and better relationships in the future, are less chewed up by romantic rejection and less likely to suffer “lasting damage” in its wake. Sure, as Ellis says, we all “prefer” to avoid breakups and other painful experiences.

Unfortunately, “experience is the best teacher” does not include the experience of being clonked over the head by a chunk of wisdom that falls out of a passing plane along with a child’s car seat and a gift-wrapped blender. !

GOT A problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol. com (www.advicegoddess.com) © 2020 Amy Alkon Distributed by Creators.Com.

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